HOSTCOM slam NNPCL/SPDC JV over alleged lacklustre attitude to fire outbreak at Buguma wellhead 008

Youths of host communities of the States of the Niger Delta region have slammed the NNPCL/SPDC Joint Venture (JV) owners of the wellhead 008 located at Buguma in Asare-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State over alleged lacklustre attitude towards the fire outbreak which occured last week.

According to the Youths, despite the cause of the fire to be due to the corrosive nature of the pipelines and oil infrastructures mostly situated in the salty swamp water, the reluctance and slow reaction of the NNPCL/SPDC Joint Venture (JV) to the incident led vandals to take advantage of the situation.

The President of the HOSTCON YOUTH COUNCIL OF NIGERIA, Comrade Fiawei E. Pathfinder,in a statement issued via electronic mail,unequivocally blame the NNPCL/SPDC Joint Venture (JV), of negligence and as it may, vandals took advantage of it that led to their attempt not to blame vandals as cause of the outbreak of fire at the facility.

According to Comrade Fiawei E. Pathfinder, “The said the fire incident that has rendered the entire Buguma and its environs, in a terrible situation could have be avoided had it been the NNPCL/SPDC JV had quarterly carried out checks on pipelines and oil infrastructures mostly situated in the salty swamp water where these pipelines and other facilities have been laid for decades thereby could be affected by the elements in the ecosystem.”

“In our emergency and crucial meeting on the unfortunate devastating fire incident, the President of Host Communities Producing Oil Gas and Pipeline Impacted States Youth Council Of Nigeria with the entire national leadership and that of the Board of Trustee, BoT, of the HOSTCON YOUTH COUNCIL OF NIGERIA totally and absolutely condemn the lackadaisical attitude and negligence by the SPDC/NNPCL JV who are the companies responsible of the said OML 008 Oil wellhead in the Buguma host community.”

“We express pain and deep lamentation over the devastating fire incident and commiserate with people of Buguma host community and environs who have been inundated by the fire.”

“And since the life threatening dangerous fire outbreak occurred in Buguma community, SPDC/NNPCL never paid attention neither did they quickly send in their emergency fire incident response team to be on ground to ascertain the level of the devastation caused by the fire so they can see for themselves the deadly effect of the hazard from the fire outbreak has caused the people of Buguma host community and its neighbouring host communities who cannot do their fishing business and continue with other means of livelihood to survive.”

“We are pained that SPDC/NNPCL JV deliberately ignored the people of Buguma community and the entire Kalabari Kingdom who are major oil and gas producing communities and Kingdom that contribute a high figure of crude oil and cubic of gas on daily basis to sustain the economy are all being neglected to their fate despite the enormity and gravity of the raging fire. We condemn this despicable attitude of SPDC and NNPCL towards our people in strong terms”.

“The truth is that it is the decay of these oil infrastructures and their negligence because there is no proper structures that have been put in place to crosscheck to ascertain if they are in good shape or decayed because these pipelines have been laid for over how many decades and no maintenance job carried on them.”

“If there’s a timely checking of them maybe every four month or maybe thrice in a year to check them with equipment to know their state all these would not happen but the company doesn’t do it. Now, they are coming up to pick an offence that the fire outbreak was caused by illegal bunkers who attempted to vandalize the wellhead.”

“So, we must put the blame on the negligence and decay of the oil pipelines that are long overdue for maintenance which are operated by SPDC and NNPCL.”

“OUR DEMANDS: HOSTCON YOUTH COUNCIL OF NIGERIA demand that urgent steps must be taken to salvage the Buguma host communities and its environs.”

“Ø HOSTCON YOUTH COUNCIL OF NIGERIA demand that SPDC/NNPCL to immediately construct housing structures and that of health care facilities for Buguma host community and its environs.”

“Ø We call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is the substantive Minister of Petroleum Resources to set up a Panel of Inquiry of competent experts drawn from the presidency, law enforcement officers, Federal Ministry of Justice to ascertain the causes of this devastating and life threatening fire outbreak.”

“Ø Anybody found culpable should be punished adequately to serve as deterrent to other IOCs and A proper remediation of the waterways and the entire environment must be carried out the wellhead into the environment.”

“We demand urgent maintenance and replacement of the decayed oil infrastructures, All the members of the host communities affected must be adequately compensated by NNPCL/SPDC JV and the Provision of pipe-borne water should be provided for Buguma host community and others.”

“At this juncture, we want to boldly state that if our demands are not met we will take a drastic decision as Council after due consultation.”