When at last, the
Federal Government set the current deadline for the stoppage of gas flaring by oil exploration and development companies in the country, most Nigerians heaved  a sigh of relief that the disturbing issue of gas flaring would soon be a thing of the past, but surprisingly, many years after the Federal Government’s deadline, gas flames still dot oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta.
The Acting Director of Pollution Studies (IPS) of the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, Dr. Tubonimi Joseph Ideriah, identified some factors as being responsible for the deadlines not being adhered to.
He said, “There are many factors that contribute to why it is so. One, the operators find it difficult because when you stop the flaring, where do you channel the gas to? That arrangement or provision has not been made or put in place for them to divert the gas to such areas.”
“Again, like every other area in our system where laws are made and people flout the laws as good enforcement is lacking to follow up defaulters of these laws,” he said, noting that the laws are made but that people go behind to receive gratifications, they mellow down and allow unacceptable practices to continue unabated.
Dr. Ideriah expressed the belief that if properly followed up, the operators could definitely look for alternative ways of channeling the gas being flared such that it could be utilized.
The IPS director, who is an expert in Environmental Analytical Chemistry said that though he could not give the value of the nation’s wealth being wasted through gas flare figure-wise but that the nation is losing so much.
He advised that the new power companies that bought over Power Holding Companies of Nigeria (PHCN) could benefit if the gas being flared is channeled to them to solve the problem of gas shortage which they often complain about.
The expert regretted that apart from the huge wealth being wasted in flaring the gas, the environment is being polluted by the activities of unpatriotic Nigerians who sabotage the nation by vandalizing gas pipelines because of survival or agitations.
He advised that sabotaging the effort of government through vandalism of gas pipes should stop and Nigerians should be patriotic while to the agitators, the environmentalist advised them to channel their request to the appropriate quarters and give sometime for the government to attend to such requests. “But when you go the other way round to sabotage, you create problems for the community on behalf of whom may be you think you are fighting for because the environmental effects for such activities could be disastrous as the pollutants emitted into the air may linger for decades and children yet unborn could come to meet them.
The Niger Delta region, he said, is comparatively polluted basically because of the oil exploration and exploitation activities heavily going on in the area as there is no way such activities could be carried on in the area without the pollution associated with such economic activities.
“Since the advent of these oil companies in the Niger Delta, we began to see serious changes in the environment. For instance, houses that are in communities where you have oil exploration activities taking place, farmers and fishermen who managed to buy a bundle of zinc to build house, hoping that the house could be for life, but we have started experiencing fast decay of roofing sheets in most communities especially the riverine area”.
“The gases are mixed with the air that we breathe, so you can see that the air we breathe is polluted, the water we use from the River that we fish as Niger Deltans whose major occupation is fishing as we depend on it and once the river is polluted, whatever we get from the River is contaminated and once you take a contaminated seafood, definitely it gets to the food chain,” he explained.
Ideriah urged the Federal Government through the National Assembly to not only put in place necessary laws but to effectively implement such laws to the latter.
“It is a thing of development and therefore no well-meaning person will contest that these oil activities should stop,” he said but emphasised the need for adoption of international best practices.
These international best practices should be put in practice here also. What is obtained to make other developed places who are also oil exploiting and exploration countries live environmentally clean life should also be applied here,” he advised and wondered why a particular law could effectively work in such countries and not work here where they are operating similar activity.
“If a law is put in place, that law should also be implemented to the latter. There should be no question of short cuts because there are certain things you can’t caught corners without it telling on the system”, he continued.
Noting that we have some good laws because some of them were adopted  from some countries that have similar operations going on there and remarked that inefficiency in their implementations make them look as if they were different laws.
The IPS director accepted that quick passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is desirable for the nation and urged the National Assembly to pass the bill without further delay.
“There could be definitely a lot of proposals that were being made that would sanitise the sector, but we don’t know how effective these  proposals that have been made could be implemented. The first stage is for the bill to be passed because without passing it you cannot get to the stage of how effective the implementation would be”, he stated, stressing that whether they were playing politics with it would be know later.
The National Assembly, he said has committees to monitor its implementations but expressed hope that it would contain proposals geared towards sanitizing the industry.
Commenting on the institute, the Acting Director said, “IPS as the pioneer Institute for Environmental Studies in Nigeria, has done so much towards raising the standard and quality of environmental research in the region since its inception in 1982.
“The institute since its inception in 1982 has been living up to expectations especially in the Niger Delta. For example, the document that is being used in the whole of Nigeria by the Federal Ministry of Environment. In 1991, the institute was part of the team that worked to put those standards that guide operations”, he said.
Some of the major goals of IPS, he said, are to raise the standard and quality of environmental research in the region and to ensure utilization of such research findings in sustainable environmental management and development.
According to him, IPS has achieved those goals through the delivery of world class environmental research studies and reports and cited instances with Environmental Baseline Studies for Establishments of Control Criteria and Standards against Petroleum related Pollution in Nigeria (RPI) report of 1985 and the Niger Delta Environmental Survey (NDES) report of 2000.
He said while RPI covers all spectrum of the environment, Air, Aquatic and Terrestrial, NDES is a regional survey covering the nine states of the Niger Delta and noted that both reports were world class by every standard and were widely referenced document.
He, however, regretted that inspite of the fact that it was the foremost in Nigeria  some of the companies and establishments that were beneficiaries of our studies have changed their policies to what you could describe as lowest bidder kind of thing so that the lowest bidder is given the study job,” he said, remarking that before it was not like that as it was based on recognition and capability.

Ideriah

Christ Oluoh