As the news of the  payment
of compensation to communities affected by the  Bonga Oil Spillage in Bayelsa State filtered out, conmen have cashed in, distributing compensations forms and collected as much as 1,500 from residents of the communities.
Unsuspecting members of the communities have been scrambling to purchase the  forms for the December 2011 Bonga oil spill incident.
It would be recalled that some 40,000 barrels of crude oil was discharged into the Atlantic Ocean during an operational mishap by the oil field operated by Shell Nigeria Production and Exploration Company (SNEPC).
The House of Representatives and National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) had in December 2014, recommended a compensation of $3.96 billion for victims of the incident.
Recently, Shell Nigeria Production and Exploration Company (SNEPCO), operators of the oil filed, signified readiness to start payment, a situation that has attracted conmen to the area, and thousands of fake forms are now in circulation.
A Youth Leader at Koluama 2 community in Bayelsa, Mr. Ebrasin Leghemo said that the Koluama communities were approached by a firm of valuers, Dutch Nigeria Ltd, which allocated 10,000 forms for the community.
“There are three groups that are involved, and we negotiated with them to give us 10,000 slots at the rate of N1,000 for indigenes and N2,000 for non-indigenes, and we were made to understand that each claimant will get N400,000.
“We heard that the House of Representatives has mandated Shell to pay N3.98 billion to the affected communities and we have secured the 10,000 slots for our community for impacted people amongst us,” Leghemo said.
Meanwhile, agents of the firm of valuers involved in the scheme were making inroads into most communities, where the  leaders were purchasing the forms in bulk.
Some of the people who had purchased the forms said that the forms were sold at between N1,000 and N1,500 each in coastal communities in Bayelsa and the state capital.
James Wilson said that he had filled and returned the form he bought for N1,000 and filed his claims for both Bonga oil spill incident of December 2011 and Chevron’s rig explosion of January 2012.
Wilson said that he had filed individual claims for N350,000 for damages from the two incidents.
Sokespersons for Shell and Chevron, the oil firms on whose oil fields the damages are claimed declined comments on the development when contacted.
However,  an Environmental and Human Rights activist, Mr. Alagoa Morris  has raised alarm over the circulation of oil spill compensation forms by syndicates in oil communities in Bayelsa.
Morris noted that the activities of the ‘faceless syndicates’ were suspicious.
He urged the state government to investigate the firms behind the scheme to save unsuspecting members of the public from falling prey to the conmen.