X3M Ideas is collaborating with the Extra Step Initiative and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, with the recently launched crowd-sourced website ‘SootCity’ to call the government to action and raise awareness on the urgency of soot in the metropolis.
Soot is a deep black powdery substance consisting largely of amorphous carbon produced by the incomplete burning of organic matter. In Port Harcourt, black soot has become a health and environmental hazard as a result of illegal oil refining and bunkering activities in the region.
On the back of this illegal oil refining, residents of Port Harcourt and Nigerians across the country are expected to share details on their life expectancy in order to raise more awareness for the health, economic and environmental crisis that is the deadly soot pollution in Port Harcourt.
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Steve Babaeko, founder / CEO, X3M Ideas, stated that with the consent of the users, the initiative will make the findings public to raise awareness on the issue and call the government to action.
“We need to be very clear on the true impact of the damage soot causes and how the crisis is slowly killing residents, in a way that is candid and easy to comprehend by all, that’s why SootCity is very jarring,” Babaeko stated.
According to him, the website (SootCity.com) leverages on data gathered from years of research across multiple countries, and organisations like the United Nations, World Health Organisation and German Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt), to accurately determine the life expectancy of each user.
Eugene Abels, founder, The Extra Step Initiative, a non-governmental organisation based in Port Harcourt, stated that there is a need for the government to update the now obsolete United Nations Ogoni Clean Up report, so as to reflect the current realities which the 10-year-old report did not capture.
“After 60 years of Rivers State being the hub of the hydrocarbon industry and with the damaging activities of the non-state actors, the Rivers State Government with external support must lead the charge to audit the damage to our flora and fauna particularly the respiratory health of the residents of Port Harcourt and other host communities from the activities of legal and illegal refining of crude oil so as to curb the rate of cancers and renal failure amongst children, indigent people and pregnant women,” Abels stated.
Bieye Renner Briggs, a public health physician and environmental advocate in Port Harcourt, stated that most people living in the affected communities know that soot is bad, but just how worse things can get is what is unknown to them. “Nigerians in Port Harcourt are daily being diagnosed with and dying from soot-related illnesses like birth defects, cancerous growths, miscarriages, and irritations of the eye, nose, throat, and skin”.
The initiative will collaborate with the government at all levels and other stakeholders on clear and strategic activities to identify and contain pollution sites towards ensuring that IOCs conduct their businesses in line with international best practices. It will also support the restructuring and empowerment of environmental and security agencies with the finance and equipment to implement and enforce environmental laws amongst others.
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