Expert Lists Measures For Oil Spills Clean-up

President and Provost, African University of Science and Technology (AUST), Prof Wole Soboyejo, on Tuesday warned against the use of chemicals in the planned clean-up of oil pollution in the Niger Delta region.

Soboyejo told The Tide in Abuja that it would be safer to use bacteria to clean up the oil spills rather than chemicals.

He said that the University in collaboration with other scientific organisations was working on the possibility of adopting the use of bacteria as a method for the clean-up exercise of the polluted Delta region.

A recent UNEP report on the Niger Delta pollution revealed that Nigeria would require one million dollars to clean-up the extent of contamination in the oil-rich region.

The report said that amount would be an initial payment for a sweeping environmental restoration of the Niger Delta and that the exercise could take 30 years.

Specifically, the polluted Ogoni land is characterised by creeks, swamps, waterways and huge reserves of oil which have enabled Nigeria to become the world’s 8th largest oil exporter.

However, decades of exploration by national and multi-national oil corporations had contaminated and destroyed the region’s land and fresh water resources, leaving the residents in abject poverty.

However, Soboyejo noted that if the ongoing research on the use of bacteria for the clean-up exercise of the region was carried out to a logical conclusion, it would serve the affected community better than the use of chemicals.

The university provost said that the use of bacteria would be a more natural source of clean up, noting that the use of chemicals could further contaminate the environment.

He said that the natural clean up method was devised by a student of the university some years ago after discovering that there was a problem in the oil rich areas with breaking down emulsions (oil-water mixtures).

Soboyejo said that the student developed a method that essentially manages emulsion problems for industries.