Solving Soot Puzzle: Wike’s Formula

About 10 years ago, “black soot” had become synonymous with Rivers State and other oil-producing Niger Delta coastal communities including, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Edo. “Black soot” was chronicled into the lexicon of oil-producing states and has remained part of their unwholesome experiences ever since.
Black soot does not emerge without cause. It is a consequence of the law of cause and effect. For every cause there must inevitably be a corresponding effect. So the presence of the black soot that is evident in coastal communities of all bearing states is a function of cause.
Black soot has been severally associated to illegal refining of petroleum products extracted from oil facilities in the oil bearing coastal communities.
The business which many people believe is second to none in profit generation is thriving unabated despite governments’ policies to stem the ugly trend.
The negative impact of illegal refining of petroleum products is better imagined than experienced.
Take a trip to Kula, Ke, Bille, Andoni, Buguma and Soku  and other coastal communities where oil is being extracted by oil companies, you will discover much to your chagrin (if you are a conservationist) the unquantifiable devastation illegal oil bunkering and refining has done to the ecosystem of those communities.
The people who were hitherto, predominantly fishermen and or farmers are wallowing in abject poverty. The trend has reduced rural dwellers to destitutes and beggars depending on hospitality from multinationals and philanthropists.
Aquatic lives like fish, prawns, mudskippers, periwinkle and others which used to be the pride and characteristics of riverine communities are now extinct. The mangrove which constituted economic source and a habitat for the aquatic lives have literally and apparently withered because of oil spill and disposal of waste products of illegally refined crude oil extracted from the facilities of oil companies, into the river.
Though the waste is disposed at the point of production, the tide conveys it to a distance because of the networking and connectivity of rivers.
That is why the Rivers State Governor’s declaration of 19 persons wanted in connection with Illegal refining of petroleum products and other related offences and the subsequent arrest, prosecution and remand of some of the suspected culprits, is seen as apt and a welcome development.
The governor had in his New Year message to the people of the State outlawed illegal refining of petroleum products and unveiled a taskforce to arrest defaulters no matter who is involved.
This renewed effort of the State Governor further lends credibility to his avowed commitment to end illegal refining of petroleum products which many people believe is the major cause of black soot.
The governor had also accused law enforcement agents, especially, the military of not only aiding and abetting but neck-deep into illegal bunkering. The recent startling revelation that a Divisional Police Officer (DPO) owns an illegal refinery in Rivers State vindicates Wike. He had also accused the federal government of not being sincere or making reasonable efforts to end the menace.
The Chairman of Emohua Local Government Area, Dr. Chidi Lloyd, and the people of the area had also protested against the perpetration of illegal bunkering. In fact, Lloyd had in a press briefing raised an alarm on the unscrupulous involvement of some military men in the illicit business which is tantamount to economic sabotage under Nigeria’s extant laws.
These clarion condemnations are not mere cheap blackmail or insinuation that should be tagged figment of imagination, or taken with a pinch of salt, considering the profiles and social status of those denouncing those involved in the act. It is dispiriting that those who are statutorily obligated to protect oil facilities, the environment and arrest economic saboteurs are the perpetrators of the heinous acts and the hydra-headed monsters.
The pertinent questions one is constrained by the unwholesome trend to ask are: when did the commonwealth of the people become the exclusive right of a few? Why would the inordinate quest of a negligible few pose a threat to means of livelihood of majority of the people and mainstay of the nation’s economy? Why would the Federal Government with her military resources fail to stop Illegal oil bunkering and refining of petroleum products? Why would the sanctity of human life be sacrificed on the altar of inordinate quest for wealth generation and materialism?
There is no gainsaying the fact that there seems to be more than what meets the eye in the clamours and agitations against illegal bunkering and refining of petroleum products even the Federal Government stance on it.
Somebody asked: if illegal bunkering and refining of petroleum products had stopped would the nation’s refineries which are either in comatose or producing far below installed capacities, be able to meet the ever increasing consumers demand, especially for kerosene and diesel?
Would government at all levels be able to alleviate the unemployment that the stop on illegal bunkering would create?
As seemingly striking and articulate as the questions are, they lack substance and they cannot justify the havoc done to our environment, means of livelihood, economic mainstay.
Medical and health experts have also associated cardiovascular cases or respiratory challenges and cancer prevalent in recent times to polluted air  and water that people inhale and drink respectively, being the direct result of refining activities.
Therefore, the fight against illegal bunkering and refining of petroleum products must be collective. It should not be left in the hands of the State government alone.
Traditional rulers, community development committees, youth bodies should brace up to protect their environment and the means of livelihood our fathers bequeathed to us.
They should muster a strong will to reject financial hand-outs in compromise to environmental sanctity, that will impoverish the present and the unborn generation.
The time to rise in defence of the environment is now or else oil-bearing communities will be a shadow of themselves and writhe in economic squalor in the next two decades, when environmentalists and petroleum engineers speculate that crude oil will be in abeyance.

By: Igbiki Benibo