A high-ranking environmentalist who works with many international agencies has asked security agencies, state and local councils to desist from burning confiscated crude oil and illegally refined products. Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, an environmental justice activist and human rights defender, wants the confiscated vessels and trucks to be sold instead of being set ablaze.
In an exclusive interview in Port Harcourt, the Executive Director, Youth and Environment Advocacy Centre, who is also national facilitator of Project with Artisanal Crude Oil Refiners for Modular Refineries in the Niger Delta said the right way to deal with confiscated vessels, tankers, trucks, sites of artisanal crude oil refining is by dismantling the sites in a way that will not harm the environment.
Fyneface has been working with the youths since 2017 to see how they can get alternative employment other than what they are doing at the moment which is harming the environment.
He said setting illegal crude and vessels ablaze as is currently being done is not the way forward. We have seen that initially they use to confiscate these facilities and keep them and before you knew it, the thieves would come and set them ablaze in attempt to destroy the evidence.
Now, he suggested, if we confiscate them, we should keep security there and carefully dismantle the sites. This means that we siphon the crude oil in reservoirs and pass them through the waterways. Government can create tank farms in some locations to receive them.
Also, we have two government refineries and some other modular refineries in the state that can receive them and keep. Government through executive order (if there are no extant laws) can sell off the containers or carriers, be they vessels, barges, tankers, or trucks, and plough the funds back into the war against soot. There are people ready to buy them.
“If you set a barge ablaze, you destroy the environment and the crude. There are people that can buy the barge and use them profitably. My office is close to the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and we saw some tankers kept at Bori camp. Over time, they began to release them, even to the owners. But, if you confiscated these things, you auction them.
“When you get to a site, you move them to the appropriate place to safeguard it. Even the oven, you ensure that there is no crude remaining in it and then bring in people that will use machines to tear them gradually as metal scraps that can be sold and recycled for use. These are better ways to handle this.
“It is not about destroying these places, also put some measures like in Balyesla State where there is a commission to audit the environment. They do not wait for UNEP like we did in Ogoni. The Rivers State government should not just order for the destruction of the sites but do dismantling. They should commission experts that will assess the sites and level of pollution and do remediation plans.’
He said the Rivers State Government can do that without waiting for the UNEP or Shell because the activities of our youths have destroyed these places. “It is the duty of the state governments to solve these problems. Why we have UNEP in Ogoni is because the pollution came mainly from Shell, even with some third party causes. We do not have such scenario in other areas. It is thus the state government that will initiate such moves.
“When you dismantle a site, audit it, and create a way to clean up the sites and clean up the youths too. It would involve providing alternative life for them, deradicalise them, re-orient them, and then key them into processes and measures that would provide alternative livelihoods for them.”
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The illegal refiners will return
The activist said all indications were rife that the boys will return. “If it is only about chasing them away, destroy sites, you have not done much. They will come back in bigger force. They will have to recover what they lost.”
He fear is that elections will absorb the attention of the governor and local council chairmen. “Before they return from elections in 2023, the boys would have regrouped and re-launched even bigger. We know quite well that artisanal refining and illegal bunkering have come to stay in Nigeria. We cannot eradiate it but we can reduce it to the barest minimum.
“So, we have to put in place measures that can absorb the boys so that the few that are remaining, with time, we can work towards eradicating them or making them end what they are doing,” he said.
Mindset of an illegal refiner: Crude oil, crude cash
Fyneface works with the boys and seems to understand them a lot. “They have a mindset; they think they are being made to suffer to heat the crude to get money whereas they think that big boys in Abuja (politicians) are making bigger money from oil without sweat.
It’s a referencing theory that is in operation here. The youths in the oil region are referencing themselves on how the big boys in Abuja are looting to stupendous wealth from sales of crude. The boys think they are being heroes by getting the crude and heating it to make money. They do not see themselves to be different from the men in Abuja that they feel are stealing money from the same crude. They call it, Crude oil: crude cash.
“So, we cannot use sticks all the time on them. We have to take it from the angle of carrot-stick approach. Tell them: Stop what you are doing, take this as an alternative,” he said.
The long journey to modular refinery alternative
The Federal Government proposed modular refinery system in 2017, and he said they at Advocacy Centre created a list, created data of them, and uploaded this online. They are gradually coming out, with the hope that they are going to have modular refineries as promised.
He went on; “We are happy that our advocacy has resulted into many outcomes. Our advocacy for the integration of artisanal crude oil refinery and a modular refinery in Nigeria led to a national conference in Abuja on March 16-17, 2021 by the FG to discuss these issues.
“We also proposed the Presidential Artisanal Crude Oil Development Initiative (PACODI) as what the FG should do for the youths involved in crude oil refining in the Niger Delta the same way they did for the youths in illegal gold mining in parts of the north by the creation of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative (PADMDI) whereby the FG buys the gold mined by the youths and ensures the money stays in Nigeria.
They should also do the same for the youths in the Niger Delta, modify what they are doing currently, so they can buy their crude and refine it in a friendly way to the environment and pay tax to the government. If that is done, it will provide the youths with alternative employment opportunities.”
Fyneface said the world today is moving away from hydrocarbon and that Nigeria should make policies to make crude oil less attractive to youths.
Filling a gap illegally
He said the government cannot be chasing after youths that are filling an energy gap. “It’s high time we looked into ways of diversifying the economy and getting these youths into mechanised agric and other emerging businesses such as clean and renewable energy and make crude oil unattractive to them.
“They have once told us they were going to convert some vehicles to use gas, but nobody hears much about this anymore. Gas is even very expensive. Government should put in place a blueprint for this. I am happy the FG says it’s going to issue 18 licenses for youths in artisanal refining.
We as advocacy groups are going to work with some of those youths to make them understand the importance of the opportunity and help them benefit from the process. A lot needs to be done by governments from the centre to the LGAs.”
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