The Rotary Club of Port Harcourt ECO has organised stop the soot conference in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital due to the constant black soot in the city.
The Chairman of the Planning Committee, Rtn Iniruo Wills in his remarks said that the programme was a multi-stakeholder engagement because a single group cannot tackle the problem successfully, adding that the solutions will be provided by all.
He explained that this process would further bring close contact with government agencies, oil companies and individuals to seek ways of ending the soot menace in Port Harcourt.
“The soot is a social challenge before us and it is not about forceful approach,” he said.
Wills further said that the soot has the capacity to kill thousands of people according to research, especially cancer.
He explained that the air quality in Port Harcourt has been compromised due to the constant black soot in the state, noting that the activities of oil firms, petrochemical companies, gas flares and the presence of artisans refining have increased travail of the people where constant cough, breathing difficulties, and other lungs complications is the order of the day.
He maintained that air quality check should be set up at strategic places and sustained effort to end the illegal refining should be vigorously pursued.
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The Chairman Planning Committee further said that periodic medical checkup is another sure way of staying safe.
The issue of stoppage of gas flares by oil companies is very strategic even if the Federal Government is taking the penalty from the cubic of gas flares by oil firms.
In an interview shortly after the event, the Chartered President Rotary Club Port Harcourt ECO, Emem Okon said the stop-the-soot conference is part of Rotary Club activities to tackle the issues bordering on soot and mangroves planting.
She told journalists that the purpose of the conference was to look for a solution and not a blame game, saying that to solve the problem of illegal refining, the government must look at alternative livelihoods for these youths, especially the establishment of modular refining.
Ferdinand Giadom, who presented a paper on ‘The Port Harcourt Black Soot Phenomenon,’ and Bieye Brigg, a medical doctor, spoke on Port Harcourt soot and its implications on health, were part of the programme.
