A community in Rivers state is suffering from the effect of oil pollution at the expense of corporate social responsibility. GODWIN EGBA reports on this and other issues.
Environmental pollution is causing unmitigated disaster to the land-locked Okrika local government area of Rivers state.The daily outcry of Okrika people is that they are in the grip of death and short life span. Their aquatic foods such as fresh water fishes, periwinkles, oysters are going extinct because oil-related chemicals from the Port – Harcourt Refinery.
Eye witness account
Mr Owubokiri Jambo who is the community development chairman (CDC) of Ogoloma community of Okrika in an interview said the community is one of the unlucky to oil companies in the Niger – Delta region when it comes to corporate social responsibility from companies such as the Port Harcourt Refinery, Nigeria National petroleum Company (NNPC) Niger Delta Development Company (NDDC) and Liquifeid Natural Gas (LNG) in Bonny Island, among others.
He noted that Ogoloma Okrika is the host community to the PHRC jetty where oil vessels come to load oil products almost on daily basis, yet all the community gets in return is oil pollution of their fresh water from where they erk their living through fishing and other economic activities.
Jambo who described their community as the most peaceful is the first ancient community being governed by their first class king in the person of His Royal Majesty E.T Obuchibo Ikwo who is an advocate of peace with companies enjoying their water space.
Jambo further attested that since King Ikwo ascended the Ogoloma stool, there had been no internal crises as a result of his leadership style that binds his people in unity from elders to the youths and other opinion leaders in Okrika.
According to Jambo, what is unique about Ogoloma and Okrika in general is a high level of cordial relationship with the police and army.
Blueprint investigation shows that Okrika is occupied by 70 – 80 percent of water, therefore finds it difficult to engage in intensive farming except aquatic business but crude oil pollution poses a create challenges to the local fisher men.
He lamented that the community had made several contacts with some oil companies for community assistance but yielded no positive result except a non – governmental organisation (NGO) called SEEFOR that had tried to construct some foot bridges to enable people have easy asses roads to link other communities.
Blueprint also noticed that a common problem associated with the Okrika people is land and chieftaincy tussle as Jambo confirmed that some sister communities had used might to collect their fishing settlements.
It is on good note that Okrika generally has a unique community policing approach to security challenges attributing it to security information system that exist between the youth leaders and the resident police division as well as the king of Okochri – okrika community, Ateke Tom.
The community youth leaders operate in such a way that a strange face is easily identified in any settlement and once security information is leaked to the police and king Ateke, no questionable or suspicious character(s) can have a freedom to take a refuge there.
Security challengeBlueprint reliably gathered that some criminal elements who operate outside Okrika community are always fetched out through the security network between the youth leaders, King Ateke and the security agencies like the police and a special army unit called Sector 3 stationed right in Ogoloma area.
Be that as it may, the Okrika Police Division has its operational challenges due to inadequate logistics and personnel as confirmed by a dependable and credible source close to the state police command situated along Mosco road in the Port-Harcourt capital city.
To worsen the situation, it is not in doubt that not even the Rivers State Police Command can boast of adequate speed boats that its men can boldly use to chase criminals down to their creek hide-outs stretching from Okrika to Bonny Island and other riverine communities across the state.
A senior police officer in Okrika who spoke with Blueprint on condition of anonymity noted that for effective policing in Rivers, corporate stakeholders need to complement the effort of the police.
The officers who commended Governor Nyesom Wike for strengthening the state police command with operational vehicles also applanded Dangote for the new operational cars, saying other corporate organisations should as well contribute their quota considering the size of Nigeria and her security challenges across the country.
