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51 Days After, Agip Oil Spillage Remains Unattended To, Community Laments

Published

3 years ago

March 24, 2022

Editor

… Community Cries Out For Relief Materials

…HOMEF Demands Immediate Clamping Of Leakage, Compensation To Residents

Bearly two months an oil spillage owned Agip Oil Company occurred at Lasukugbene in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, the spills remain unattended to, natives of the community lament.

Recall that on 24th of February 2021, a similar spill occurred in Ogboibide community in Southern Ijaw where an Agip pipeline at OML63 had a gas leak and the company could only clamp the leakage site after much waste of time.

The continuous spill has exposed health of residents of the community to danger thereby subjecting them to suffering, hardship, hunger, etc.

INFO DAILY reports that Lasukugbene community plays host to manifold pipelines and oil wells belonging to Agip Oil Company which has been operating in the community since 1974.

Lasukugbene, a predominately fishing community, has no hospital or health care facilities and relies mostly on local herbs for treatment of their ailments. They lack all basic social amenities.

According to a statement by Kome Odhomor, Media and Communication Officer, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, a recent visit by her organistion in collaboration with Environmental Rights Action, ERA, to ascertain the level of damage done to the community by the spills, reveals that fifty-one days after the spill was recorded, no Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) has been officially carried out by the relevant authorities.

Odhomor, in the statement stated that the people of Lasukugnene lamented that the oil spill has destroyed their rivers and lands, adding that the river, which is their only source of potable water and their crops have been contaminated by the oil spill.

The statement stated that some community members described their ordeal, just as they expressed sadness over Agip’s negligence and government’s failure to regulate better and to bring succor their way.

Secretary of the community, Mr. Valiant Jackson, who spoke to the environmental organisation revealed that the spill which was discovered on 3rd February 2022 had occurred over a month earlier.

“Yesterday, 18th March, Agip sent their team to clamp the erupted pipeline without informing the community leadership or contacting anyone from the community. When we saw them and approached them to find out what they were doing , Agip accepted that the spill was actually caused by equipment failure, saying that they were doing their best to ensure that the spill was contained.

“Since the operation of Agip in the community, the only thing Agip has provided for the community is a water tank that is not working. We have no hospital, except for a small healthcare facility built by the local government. The equipment in the health centre was bought by the community and the only staff in the health centre comes only once in a while, usually during statewide immunization campaigns,.” Jackson said.

Another community woman, Josephine Tarilla, stated: “We are suffering. There are no standard healthcare facilities, water, school or light. We can no longer fish in our rivers, and the oil spill has destroyed all our fishing tools and nets.

“We call on Agip and the government to come to our aid. We are suffering as a result of the oil spill from the Agip pipeline which passes through our community. We need help and relief materials to reduce our sufferings. Since the spill occurred, almost two months now, we observe that there are rashes all over our bodies when we use the water from the river to bathe. We do not have alternative source of water. The spill is killing us here!”

“Since morning I have been on the water for fish and all I could get is this small catch of fingerlings. My nets are all soaked with oil. I cannot use them again for fishing. We are calling on Agip and the government to come to our aid to stop the problem we are facing in the community,” lamented Betty, a community woman.

Cadmus Atake-Enade, Project Lead, Fossil Politics, Health of Mother Earth Foundation who was part of the visit stated that “the spill blanketed the community’s river and swamps. It was an absolutely disheartening and scary sight.

“I wonder if there is hope for the common Niger Delta man. Communities in this region are suffering daily, there should be an immediate health and environmental audit of this place and the clean-up process should begin.”

HOMEF therefore demanded an immediate clamping of the leakage on the pipelines and replacement of all rusted pipelines in the areas.

The organisation also calls for a man health audit in the area, and the entire Niger Delta as well as payment of adequate compensations for harms suffered.

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Hiroshima Marks 80 Years As US-Russia Nuclear Tensions Rise

Published

4 hours ago

August 7, 2025

Editor

Japan marked 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday with a ceremony reminding the world of the horrors unleashed, as sabre-rattling between the United States and Russia keeps the nuclear “Doomsday Clock” close to midnight.

A silent prayer was held at 8:15 am (2315 GMT), the moment when US aircraft Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” over the western Japanese city on August 6, 1945.

On a sweltering morning, hundreds of black-clad officials, students and survivors laid flowers at the memorial cenotaph, with the ruins of a domed building in the background, a stark reminder of the horrors that unfolded.

In a speech, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui warned of “an accelerating trend toward military buildup around the world”, against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East.

“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it was Japan’s mission “to take the lead… toward a world without nuclear weapons”.

The final death toll of the Hiroshima attack would hit around 140,000 people, killed not just by the colossal blast and the ball of fire, but also later by the radiation.

Three days after “Little Boy”, on August 9, another atomic bomb killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, bringing an end to World War II.

Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many.

On the eve of the ceremony, people began lining up to pay their respects to the victims in front of the cenotaph.

Before dawn on Wednesday, families who lost loved ones in the attack also came to pray.

Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who arrived in a wheelchair with her grandson, told reporters that her parents and grandparents were bomb victims.

“My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer. My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn’t see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war.

“People are still suffering,” she added.

Wednesday’s ceremony was set to include a record of around 120 countries and regions including, for the first time, Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives.

The United States — which has never formally apologised for the bombings — was represented by its ambassador to Japan. Russia and China were absent.

Nihon Hidankyo, the grassroots organisation that last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, is representing the dwindling number of survivors, known as hibakusha.

As of March, there were 99,130 hibakusha, according to the Japanese health ministry, with the average age of 86.

“I want foreign envoys to visit the peace memorial museum and understand what happened,” the group’s co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki told local media ahead of the commemorations.

Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that “in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts”, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained “living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons”.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the very weapons that brought such devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again being treated as tools of coercion”.

– Younger generation –
The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime.

Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived the blasts as a baby, told AFP he was hopeful that there could eventually be a nuclear-free world.

“The younger generation is working hard for that end,” he said ahead of the ceremony.

But in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” shifted to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 78-year history.

The clock symbolising humanity’s distance from destruction was last moved to 90 seconds to midnight over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russia and the United States account for around 90 percent of the world’s over 12,000 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

SIPRI warned in June that “a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened,” with nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states modernising their arsenals.

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines following an online spat with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

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Rare 1937 ‘Hobbit’ Discovered In House Clearance Sells For $57,000

Published

6 hours ago

August 7, 2025

Editor

A rare first-edition copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” sold for 43,000 pounds ($57,000) at auction on Wednesday, after it was found during a house clearance in South-West England.

Purchased by a private collector in the United Kingdom, the book is one of 1,500 original copies of the British author’s seminal fantasy novel that were published in 1937.

Of those, only “a few hundred are believed to still remain”, according to the auction house Auctioneum, which discovered the book on a bookcase at a home in Bristol.

Bidders from around the world drove the price up by more than four times what the auction house expected for the manuscript.

“It’s a wonderful result for a very special book,” said Auctioneum rare books specialist Caitlin Riley.

“The surviving books from the initial print run are now considered some of the most sought-after books in modern literature,” Auctioneum said in a statement.

Auctioneum unearthed the book during a routine house clearance after its owner passed away.

“Nobody knew it was there,” Riley said. “It was just a run-of-the-mill bookcase.”

“It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition,” she said.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she added, calling it an “unimaginably rare find”.

The copy is bound in light green cloth and features rare black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien, who created his beloved Middle-earth universe while he was a professor at the University of Oxford.

The book was passed down in the family library of Hubert Priestley, a botanist connected to the university.

“It is likely that both men knew each other,” according to Auctioneum, which said Priestley and Tolkien shared mutual correspondence with author C.S. Lewis, who was also at Oxford.

“The Hobbit”, which was followed by the epic series “The Lord of the Rings”, has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

The sagas were turned into a hit movie franchise in the 2000s.

A first edition of “The Hobbit” with a handwritten note in Elvish by the author sold for £137,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2015.

AFP

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Relief For Applicants As Germany Eases Visa Process, Opens Visa Centres In Nigeria, Others

Published

7 hours ago

August 6, 2025

Editor

Germany has expanded its Schengen visa services by launching four new application centres in Africa and the Middle East, including two in Nigeria.

The centres, located in Abuja, Lagos (Nigeria), Yaoundé (Cameroon), and Nicosia (Cyprus), are part of a new seven-year partnership between Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and VFS Global, the international visa processing firm.

Until now, Nigerians applying for German Schengen visas had to go through the German Embassy in Abuja or the Consulate General in Lagos, where limited capacity and high demand often caused delays and long appointment wait times.

The new visa centres are expected to significantly ease the process, cut down on waiting periods, and improve overall access for applicants.

Germany continues to be a major destination for Africans and Middle Easterners pursuing education, healthcare, tourism, and job opportunities.

Meanwhile, VFS Global has issued a warning to the public about fake websites and individuals offering fraudulent visa appointments for a fee.

Recent figures indicate Nigeria had a 45.9% Schengen visa rejection rate in 2024—the third-highest globally after Bangladesh.