- May 10, 2022

Kebetkache Collaborates with WOMIN on a One Week Learning Exchange Visit 2022

Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre collaborated with WOMIN

African Alliance to organize one week Learning Exchange Meeting and solidarity visit to

provide opportunity for civil society organizations from Botswana and Sierra Leone have

direct engagement with the experiences of oil impacted communities in the Niger Delta.

The aim of the visit was to help Sierra Leone and Botswana activists to learn from Niger

Delta communities on how to engage with government and the international oil

companies to strengthen their own engagement process with their government and

companies operating in the mining sector. Furthermore, the visit revealed strategies

deployed by communities in the Niger Delta in the engagements with mining and

extractive companies to protect the rights of communities and mitigate human rights

abuses and environmental degradation.

There were 10 persons from Botswana and 4 from Sierra Leone. The team visited oil

impacted communities in Bayelsa, Rivers and Akwa Ibom states. In Bayelsa state, the

high point was the visit to the Palace of His Royal Majesty King Bubaraye Dakolo

(Agada IV), The Ibenanaowei of Epetiama Kingdom. King Dakolo is the author of ‘The

Riddle of the Oil Thief’. The book details the environmental issues and socio-economic

challenges associated with hydrocarbon extraction in the Niger Delta. In his speech

during the visit, His Majesty stated that oil and gas exploitation came with serious socio-

economic disruptions which the government and oil companies failed to handle and this

has resulted in very negative behaviours and sociological patterns amongst youths. The

King also noted with dismay that there is no sustainable livelihood programme in place

to address the destruction of the ecosystem by the activities of the oil corporations.

The group also visited the Oloibiri Oil Well 1 located at Otubagi community, the first oil

well in Nigeria which symbolizes the tragedies and pains of the Niger Delta experience

in hydrocarbon extraction. Oil Well One was the first commercial oil well drilled by Royal

Dutch Shell in Nigeria. The Well has since been abandoned and decommissioned by

Shell and is now a national monument. The Otuabagi women, who received the team

lamented how Shell and the Federal government have neglected them after making huge profits from oil taken from their land.

In River state, the visit to a Umuobizi community, Ibaa clan in Emuoha local

Government Area where the team saw several holes locked with metal pipes where a well drilled for water bore-hole is filled with crude oil instead of water. The residents of the compound narrated how Shell staff often go to the compound with tankers to pump the crude from the well. The well is covered with a metal with eleven holes scattered all over the compound.

Ogoni women spoke passionately about the polluted environment, the report released

by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2011 and the ongoing clean up in Ogoniland by the Federal Government through the Hydrocarbon Pollution

Remediation Project (HYPREP). This led to the visiting HYPREP water treatment

facility in Alesa- Eleme. The water intervention was from the recommendation of UNEP report of OgoniLand.

There was also a visit to the Goi community, which suffered heavy impacts of the 2008 and 2012 major oil spillage that occurred in Bodo community. Goi is not an oil producing community, but community lost major businesses such as commercial fish ponds, bakery, and cassava farms. The water pollution led to massive losses in fisheries and aquatic lives. The community recently won a lawsuit against Shell in the Netherlands and is demanding compensation for farmers, fisher folks etc.

Other places visited during the learning exchange are:

 Ikot Ada Udo in Ikot Abasi Local Government in Akwa Ibom State, a community

with an abandoned oil well. Ikot Ada Udo a major spill in 2006.

 Upenekang community in Ibeno Local Governmet Area, where Exxon Mobil

have been operating over the past decades with several incidnets of oil spill.