The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) has called for the immediate evacuation of residents in the communities of Ogale, Aleto, Agbonchia, Onne, Okpaku, Alesa all in Eleme local government area after oil spilled from Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) facilities.
MOSOP’s President, Fegalo Nsuke, in a statement, said that the spills which occurred on Sunday June 11, 2023 is still spreading and continues to affect residential areas, farmlands and the surrounding waters and spreading further.
Nsuke said that the spill will likely affect more communities beyond Ogoni, noting that it shows that Shell had secretly been operating its facilities in Ogoni.
He said: “If Shell claims that it is not operating the oilfields secretly in Ogoni, then how come we have such massive oil spills that affect several communities and have contaminated massive lands and waters in the area?”
The MOSOP leader noted that by now, Shell should have decommissioned its facilities in Ogoni going by the recommendations of the United Nations Environment Programme on Ogoni which Shell and the government claim to have been implementing since 2016.
He egretted that there had been much insincerity on the part of Shell in the handling of and decommissioning of its rfacilities in Ogoni and called on the Nigerian authorities to introduce more severe penalties for oil spill cases and environmental pollution.
“Environment pollution has been encouraged in Nigeria because there are little or no consequences for the polluters. This is something the government should strongly consider in the light of present realities where people’s lives are altered by constant pollution and no one is held to account.”
