Rivers State exploded last week when Governor Nyesom Wike marched into the forests on his own to hunt down illegal refining and bunkering sites known in local parlance as ‘kpofire’ or heating with fire.
The governor later ordered all the local council chairmen to do the same and promised N2m for any site discovered. He also gave them 48 hours to discover and list the kpofire sites around the state and asked any chairman not able to quit.
This sudden declaration of war seemed to take the state by surprise because Wike had for years said the matter was a federal one and at other times, had frowned at anti-soot campaigners as if they were enemies of the state. At a point, he told the people to pray to God for the FG to act.
Now, with the turn of tactics and new order, the bushes, forests and creek came under fire as the council bosses and their men invaded the forests. One council chairman impounded an exhibit site belonging to a security agency where kpofire products and containers are usually kept and protected, and ran into heated opposition from that agency.
Reacting, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Rivers State Command, came out to debunk reports making the rounds that the command exhibit dumpsite located at NSCDC Jetty, Ogbogoro community in Obio-Akpor Local Government Area, is a bunkery site.
Briefing newsmen at the NSCDC Jetty Ogbogoro, the State Commandant, Aliyu Bature, said that the place in question was their Marine exhibit yard where arrested suspected oil thieves and illegal petroleum products were paraded.
Another council boss went many kilometres into the Ebubu forests where he traced what he called the largest illegal refining site in Nigeria.
On conclusion of the tracking and listing by the council bosses, Gov Wike summoned all of them together with heads of security agencies to the seat of power in Port Harcourt where he lambasted those he felt had been aiding kpofire with their uniforms and announced N20m for each LGA boss to hire equipment to destroy the sites.
The governor also asked the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Eboka Friday, to provide adequate security for the LGA bosses as they embark on the mass destruction of illegal refinery sites across the state.
Gov Wike said: “I will not relent in this fight. And all of you should hire bulldozers. All those areas where the illegal refinery sites are in the bush, in the creek, clear the place. The government will give you some money to go and hire bulldozers to go and clear the sites so that they will know we are serious.”
According to the governor, the government would not allow those engaged in illegitimate business to operate in Rivers State.
“One thing I want to say and which is very clear, and like everybody knows, I am not against anybody making money. But, we cannot allow people to make money, while others are dying.”
The governor acknowledged that since the state government intensified the fight against illegal refinery operators, who are primarily responsible for the discharge of impure carbon particles (soot) resulting from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, the air quality in parts of the Rivers State has improved remarkably.
Governor Wike said he was mindful that as the state government intensifies the war against illegal refinery activities, the cartel behind illicit business would make effort to compromise unscrupulous security agents in the state.
He, however, warned that he would personally visit the Inspector General of Police, the Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and the Chief of Army Staff in Abuja, to report any of their personnel implicated in illegal crude oil bunkering and artisanal refinery activities in Rivers State.
“You know in Nigeria, we don’t believe that anything can happen. We don’t take government seriously, but in our own case, they have no choice, they’ll take us seriously.”
The governor, who regretted the failure of the Federal Government to take any action to end the soot crisis in the oil-producing states, said his administration cannot fold its arms and watch some deviant persons destroy the environment and health of the citizens.
Naming the suspects
The governor began a week earlier by naming those he found to be behind some kpofire sites and even ordered that some named monarchs be arrested. He also named some kingpins he said were behind the crisis.
Some of the monarchs protested and said they were innocent, and their kinsmen have joined to defend them. Some of them said they did not have an army to fight bunkerers and illegal refiners and urged the FG to bring modular refineries to solve the problem. (The FG has just announced 18 to be brought).
Some named kingpins took to the airwaves to say they were no criminals but men that had worked for some top government officials now in government in the past. This brought some suspicion in the atmosphere.
Read also: LGA bosses take over hunt for illegal refineries in Rivers State’s forests
Critics step in: Govt construction ally is highest buyer
As expected, the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state has stepped into the soot wars. In a statement in Port Harcourt, the elected state publicity secretary, Chris Finebone, claimed that it was rather the state government that was behind bunkering and soot in the state.
The state recalled that the governor in broadcast had declared wanted those the governor said were “kingpins of bunkering and illegal crude oil refining activities in their communities.”
The governor also said that “those behind illegal bunkering activities in Okrika communities, Port Harcourt Township, Rivers South-East and Rivers South-West Senatorial Districts and their names would be soon published and declared wanted if they fail to voluntarily report to the police.
“While it appears that Gov Wike has finally hearkened to the overwhelming criticism by Rivers people, deeper and critical inquisition into the circumstances surrounding the phenomenon has revealed indirect large scale complicity by the Rivers State Government in the menace.
The statement pointed out that from 2015 to date, most major projects by the Rivers State Government since its inauguration were being executed by a multinational construction company. At the present peak of the company’s construction activities in Rivers State, the company consumes on average about 300,000 litres of AGO per day. This has undeniably become one single biggest AGO consumption volumes in Rivers State. Sadly, the entire volume of AGO is sourced from illegal refiners of the product locally called ‘kpofire’ and the reason is that the company buys AGO at between N220 and N240 per litre, whereas, the official ex-depot price of AGO from NIPCO and other major importers range from N315 to N350 per litre.
“By buying the product from illegal refiners below-market minimum prices, a huge demand has been created for the kpofire (illegally refined) products. This naturally has encouraged so many people (young and old) to join the illegal refining business because of a thriving and ready market. The result is a burgeoning illegal refining business which has, in turn, heightened the level of soot descending on residents of Port Harcourt and environs, causing all manner of health problems for both the young and old, in the present and for the future.”
The party said one of the altruistic attempts to stop the ravaging soot, once and for all, would have been for the governor to interrogate the supply chain management practices of its major contractor, Julius Berger, to ensure that it operates responsibly.
“However, we doubt whether the governor will act along that line as all the subcontractors who supply AGO to ‘ally’ are linked to the governor who also recommended them to the company under local content participation.”
The statement went ahead to mention some three names of both foreign and local personalities they said are always briefing the governor, complicit in the relationship between the company and the government.
Rather than undertake a poorly rehearsed declaration in the media, the APC went on, the governor should have used these individuals to ensure that the company, by their action, desisted from encouraging illegal refining by obtaining clean AGO from reputable dealers/suppliers instead of patronising AGO sourced from the underworld at prices below market standard prices.
“What this means is that the more flyovers the company builds, the more soot we find in the air over Port Harcourt.”
Nsirim gives insight into Wike’s heroism
“Political opportunists whose stock-in-trade is to politicise every genuine intention of Gov Wike should bury their heads in shame this time around.”
Paulinus Nsirim is not only a respected pastor but the state’s commissioner for Information and Communications. He has tried to put the tour undertaken by the governor in perspective, saying the revelations have not only been mind-boggling in terms of the assemblage of sophisticated equipment and the operational dynamics of the illegal refineries, but sadly in the cummulative impact and overall long-term negative implications of the environmental, health and economic damages their continuous operations have inflicted and would continue to inflict on the people.
“Gov Wike’s pragmatic offensive against illegal refineries had been driven by his deep worry and concern over the environmental pollution caused by dangerous black soot, which had practically covered the stratosphere of major parts of Rivers State and had become even more life-threatening with the arrival of the Omicron Delta Covid-19 variant, to compound the already menacing and precarious respiratory health challenges synonymous with the Coronavirus.
“More significant to the Rivers Governor’s courageous trip is however, the widely believed notion that the FG and its security agencies have either deliberately, or otherwise, failed woefully to rein in those behind illegal oil bunkering and artisanal crude oil refiners in the state, whose illegal operation has become the number one health hazard in the state.
“To fully comprehend and appreciate the enormity of the situation which confronts Rivers people with the continued operations of these illegal refineries unchecked, and which has now driven the Rivers Governor to engage in this frontal, hands-on radical action to tackle the soot menace, one must necessarily reflect on the timeless Igbo adage invoked by the great Nigerian writer, the late professor, Chinua Achebe, in the famous novel in ‘Things Fall Apart’ which says that: ‘a man who does not know where the rain began to beat him, cannot say where he dried his body.’
“It is a well known fact that the illegal refining business is a multi-billion naira industry. It is something that is not hidden, it is very visible. Governor Wike has, in several widely reported occasions, called out the heads of Security agencies in the state, over their involvement in aiding and abetting the illegal operations.
“Niger Delta analysts and Civil Society Organisations have also opined that a lot of influential political and military leaders referred to as ‘cabal’ or ‘cartels’ are all involved in this business, and so it has become quite difficult to put a halt to it.
“The result of this illegal occupation in Rivers State and on Rivers people is the Black soot. Efforts to tackle this health hazard may have been cosmetic, especially following the 2016 and 2018 #StopTheSoot protests, Port Harcourt and other parts of Rivers State and Niger Delta.”
Showing a correlation between Covid-19 deaths and soot menace, Nsirim said there is no doubt that Wike’s actions are welcomed by the people. “Governor Wike has never failed to stand on the side of the people and his ‘war’ against illegal refineries is just another manifestation of a leader who not only leads from the front, but will always put his people first and step on toes to ensure that the people come first, no matter whose ox is gored.”
He ended with a big admonition, thus: “Political opportunists whose stock-in-trade is to politicise every genuine intention of Governor Wike should bury their heads in shame this time around.”
Difficult issues
Politics and war songs apart, there are about three difficult issues that must be tackled for the victory over bunkering and soot to be sustainable.
What to do with seized products?
The first is what security agencies should do with seized products. In the beginning of the bunkering scenario, the barges bearing illegal products were always anchored at the major wharfs awaiting further action. Often, hit-men would track it before daybreak and set the entire barge ablaze to erase any traces of ownership of the vessel. Soon, security agencies resorted to setting vessels with products ablaze right away. This accounts for the array of charred vessels across the waters in the oil region.
This also resulted in billowing smokes in the air around the region especially Rivers State, dropping back into the atmosphere as soot. Result? Keeping it is dangerous, burning it is dangerous. A commentator, Godspower Echendu, suggested on facebook that the seized products be sent to the refineries for testing and further processing for sale to the public.
Kidnapping or kpofire?
Many people believe that the bunkerers and kpofire operators are same personnel for kidnap and other violent crimes who have been absorbed into a new hustle. There is fear that should kpofire be stopped, another bloody enterprise may return. Reacting to this theory, Gov Wike thundered in anger; “Would we replace one evil with another?” This is admitting that there is no clear answer to that fear, what matters is stopping the soot that scientific research says is set to depopulate the state through cancer and other lungs ailments. One such finding said men may not be able to impregnate their wives.
Can modular refinery licenses help?
The third dilemma seems to be how to design attractive enterprises and incomes that can replace bunkering and illegal refining. Some have called for licensing and modular refinery option, but business analysts say the moment crude oil has to be paid for, costs to be borne, and processes have to be standardized for safety, the profit margin may crash and make legal refining unattractive. The licenses may also not cover the thousands of youths and middlemen that have turned kpofire into an industry.
Any alternative to evil products?
There is almost a total absence of legitimate products in the region. A federal agency executive told some newsmen during interaction that a monarch in the creeks asked him to go round the community and if he could find kerosene anywhere, he the monarch would ask his subjects to stop kpofire. He said he was weak because there is severe unavailability of legitimate products, especially kero that most homes need to cook food. If kpofire kero is the only one available, so be it, they seem to think.
Conclusion
The war against soot is on from all corners. Those who may have been compromising are threatened. The real victory will, however, come only if the answers are found to the sticking issues raised.
