The Stakeholders Alliance for Corporate Responsibility (SACA) has faulted the Nigerian government and multinational oil companies operating in the Niger-Delta over health hazards associated with exploitation and exploration activities.
Newsmen learnt that SACA was formed and registered in Nigeria by an Irish Priest, Reverend Fr. Kevin O’ Hara, as a Non-Governmental Organisation in 2012 to find solutions to environmental problems inherent in the exploitation and exploration of oil by multinationals operating in the Niger-Delta region.
Speaking to journalists at the inauguration of the group’s “Project Management Committee (PMC),” the Executive Director, SACA, Kingsley Ozegbe, hinted that statics available to his organisation through researches carried out revealed that in 2012 alone, about 16,000 neonatal babies died in the Niger-Delta region within one month of their birth, because according to him, they were conceived within a 10-kilometre radius from sites of oil spills.
The PMC is chaired by the Bayelsa State Chairperson of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Dr. (Mrs) Christiana MacDonald, while Eng. Iro Singer of the Bayelsa State Ministry of Environment is to serve as Secretary.
Ozegbe reiterated their commitment to creating awareness through periodic sensitization programmes of the group, noting that with the volume of oil spills occurring in the production areas of the multinational firms, more infants stand at greater risks of deformity and possible death.
Ozegbe averred that further investigations by the group revealed that the effect of oil spill in the region also led to the termination of pregnancies in every 13-19 pregnant women out of a total 1,000 studied as well impairing weight and height growth of children that survived neonatal death.
The report of the findings of the research obtained by SACA reads in part: “The aberrant exploitation of natural resources in the Niger-Delta of Nigeria is posing serious threat to children’s lives, health and potential to procreate at maturity.
“In 2017, a research carried out by Anna Bruedele and Roland Holder University of St. Gallen Switzerland on the effect of oil spills on infant mortality unveiled in 2012 revealed that about 16,000 neonatal babies died in the Niger-Delta region within one month of their birth because they were conceived within a 10km radius from an oil spill site.
“But three years after the research publication, nobody is talking about the research findings in the region and oil spillages are becoming more endemic in the region and Bayelsa in particular.”
