The local refining of crude oil has become a lucrative but disturbing business in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Deep inside the forests of the Niger Delta camps make-shift facilities are built and used for the local refining of crude oil. The economic benefits this brings to the refiners are clear, but the nation loses millions of dollar through this nefarious activity.
In the process, the host communities are severely hit by the activities of the ‘local crude oil refiners’. Farmlands have also been destroyed and fishing settlements evacuated as a result of pollution of the rivers and estuaries, with loss of lives and properties.
Beyond the economic considerations of crude oil theft in Nigeria, the negative economic impacts and environmental degradation associated with illegal oil refineries require urgent attention.
For long, the declining natural resource base of the people in the Niger Delta region has resulted in wide spread protests and unemployment leading to destruction of oil installation by the youths
There is no gain saying the fact that the activities of illegal refineries severely impact biodiversity, aesthetic scenery of the forest, regeneration of plant species and destruction of wildlife habitat, disruption of water cycle and loss of medicinal plant species. However, youth enlightenment, and empowerment through vocational training and environmental education can ameliorate the situation.
The Niger Delta environment is a highly sensitive ecological zone known for high biodiversity, and the rural people of the oil rich delta region depend on these resources for their livelihood. The Niger Delta vegetation consists mainly of rainforests, fresh water swamp, brackish swamp forests and mangrove forests. The intertidal zones of the tidal brackish and tidal fresh water are noted for organisms that depend on the diurnal tidal cycle. Most of the flora and fauna are either mobile or sedentary.
But over the years, the Niger Delta environment has suffered degradation due to oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities. When oil crude petroleum spill into tidal waters, mobile organisms are able to swim away from the polluted environment, but the substrate of sedentary organisms are smeared with oil carried by incoming tidal water. By this means, the oil is spread across the width of the intertidal zone as well as up and down stream limits of the tide along the river course, depending on the time and point of spill within the tidal regime.
Oil attenuates oxygen in the water column and coat breathing apparatus of aquatic organisms. Specifically, it starves mangroves of oxygen by coating the breathing roots of the mangroves and scotching the tender structures of aquatic macrophysics of tidal fresh water vegetation.
Unfortunately, all the hues and cries of the people of the oil rich Niger Delta region against the degradation of their environment as a result of the environmental impact of oil and gas exploration and exploitation have fallen on deaf ears, as the government seems incapacitated to take a decisive action against this hydra-headed monster reportedly being sponsored by wealthy and influential individuals in our society including retired senior military officers.
For long, the declining natural resource base of the people in the Niger Delta region has resulted in wide spread protests and unemployment leading to destruction of oil installation by the youths. It was partly one of such agitations that took the life of the Ogoni leader, Ken Saro Wiwa and other human rights activists. Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight to this nefarious activity which is akin to economic sabotage.
As the wastes from these refining sites are released without any form of treatment into the river they spread upstream and downstream throughout the river course. Untreated crude oil waste discharged indiscriminately into aquatic systems cause the destruction of medicinal plants which are the ‘warehouse’ for traditional health care delivery.
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Furthermore, illegal refineries’ wastes cause the contamination of the ecosystem. As the plants die and decay, the soil stabilization properties of the roots are lost, leading to coastal erosion. The loss of vegetation drastically hampered the regeneration of species in the forest as seeds and saplings on the forest floor are contaminated.
Suffice it to say that the impact of illegal refineries on the Niger Delta environment has raised questions of great concern in the minds of not only the inhabitants in the region but the global community. The people of the region have continued to suffer polluted air, contaminated environment, degraded forests, biodiversity loss and high atmospheric temperatures.
To halt the continual environmental degradation of the Niger Delta occasioned by activities of illegal crude oil refining, the following deliberate intervention measures to compensate the people are recommended: youth empowerment through vocational training, environmental education for people in the region, cleaning of degraded sites, afforestation and reforestation of degraded sites as well as free and compulsory education for all the youths and children in the Niger Delta region.
In addition, government should strengthen the existing laws against illegal oil refining and increase security surveillance around the affected areas. To achieve this objective, collaboration with community and youth leadership is non- negotiable.
Meanwhile, the government should come into the picture by reviving our own refineries. Indeed, it is possible to contend that our own moribound refineries have largely created a vacuum the operators of the illegal refineries are attempting to fill. After all as the saying goes: Nature abhors a vacuum!
