By Stephen Ubanna
For years the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, a maritime regulatory body under the ministry of marine and blue economy which has Oyetola Adegboyega, a former governor of south western state of Osun as the minister has been involved in mitigating the impact of oil spills in Niger Delta Communities.
Oil spills, according to energy experts is the accidental discharge of crude oil into the environment, which they are had said are usually leaked into the ocean or coastal waters but could also occur on land. The experts had said that such oil spills are caused by human activities such as the release of crude oil from tankers, drilling rigs or offshore platforms or by natural disasters. They noted that there have been incidents involving tankers, barges, pipelines, refineries, and storage facilities, described as the most common in the Niger Delta region.
In the past, officials of SPDC, the company that had experienced much of the oil spills incidents in the Niger Delta region had blamed it on ‘’sabotage’’. The company may have known that such explanations could no longer hold water, let alone stopping the people from taking any action that it had come out to speak the truth the spills are caused mostly by equipment failure, rusty and poorly maintained pipelines to avoid aggravating the anger of the people, who are not happy that the ruptured pipelines which are not properly maintained by SPDC, engineers and Contracting firms , whenever there was oil spill incident , it leaked into the ground and into the river in the affected Community as was the case in the recent spillage in Bonny Community in Rivers state.

Dayo Mobereola, the NIMASA, Director General may have opened up why the Maritime Regulatory agency is committed’’ to mitigating the impact of oil spills in the Niger Delta region to restore the affected areas back to normal economic activities and forestall the people from venting their anger on the multi-national and local oil companies involved in oil spills incident which may affect their production and invariably, the country’s economy which is sustained by oil revenue.
The recent oil spills in a Community in Bonny Island, according to a statement issued by Osagie Edward, an Assistant Director and the agency spokesperson had occurred on Sunday, Dec.15, 2024, at the SPDC, loading terminal in Bonny, SMI, Rivers state. Based on reports making the rounds the spill was said to have resulted from ‘’ruptured pipeline’’.
This may have informed why the maritime agency is actively involved in monitoring the situation from its emergency operations center in collaboration with the company officials and other relevant stakeholders to access the extent of the spill and determine ‘’necessary follow-up actions’’’ to avoid a repeat in the future.
As a prelude to stop the spread of the spills in the affected Community in Bonny Local Government Area of the oil Rivers state to neighboring Communities may have informed why the Company had resorted to plan B,’’ to shut down the affected pipeline and promptly deployed containment booms to protect the area.

An eyewitness account had confirmed that the Bonny Island oil spill, described as one of the worst in the recent time, had already reached the shoreline of the Community but the NIMASA, Chief Executive Officer, CEO, had said there was no cause for alarm, as urgent steps have been taken ‘’’to clear the spills.
There is no gainsaying the fact that there have been recurrent oil spills in the Niger Delta region which cuts across the nine states, comprising of the south states of Akwa Ibom, Cross river, Bayelsa, Edo, Rivers, and south eastern states of Abia and Imo including south western state of Ondo.
There are indications that the oil spills on in the Niger Delta Communities on several occasions had affected harbours, rivers, estuaries and most of the West and Central African sub-regions largest Mangrove Forest system.
A source at the National Oil Spill Protection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, had told The Value News on condition of anonymity that between 2011 and now, there had been over 500 oil spills incidents in different parts of the Niger Delta region, particular, in Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states, releasing a combined over one million barrels of oil into the environment destroying the people’s fishing nets and boats. This is in addition to polluting the rivers that had been their source of livelihood.
Note that NOSDRA, which had investigated much of the oil spill incidents across the country over the years may not have it found it necessary to publish the reports and which may have encouraged SPDC and the other oil Companies operating in the Niger Delta region not to pay much attention to fixing their ruptured pipelines as at when do until it gets worse to the point of leaking oil into the ground and poluuting the river used by the people for their daily economic activities of fishing. .