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Bayelsa govt counters JIV report, slams claims Nembe oil spill was caused by sabotage

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The Bayelsa State Government has criticised claims that the Nov. 5 oil leak at Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 in Nembe was caused by sabotage.

This was disclosed in a statement on Sunday issued by Mr Biriyai Dambo, Chairman, Technical Committee which dismissed the claim and faulted the procedures adopted in arriving at the conclusions.

Ripples Nigeria had reported that regulatory agencies investigating the incident had on Dec. 22 attributed the spill to sabotage while the Bayelsa committee claimed the spill was due to equipment failure.

The regulators are the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

In his response, Dambo said, “the divergent views held by the parties could not be resolved and so rendered the Joint Investigative Visit (JIV) inconclusive.”

“The components and accessories of the wellhead that were to be inspected had been removed and replaced, which amounted to tampering with and concealing the equipment and evidence.”

He further pointed out that there have been similar incidents of oil spillage, although of lesser magnitude, from the same Santa Barbara Wellhead 1 in OML 29 in 2018 and 2019, which Aiteo had previously admitted.

The committee expressed regrets that to date there had been no remediation nor safeguards against future recurrence put in place or enforced by Aiteo and NOSDRA respectively over the said spills.

According to the statement, requests for remediation of the earlier spills by the affected communities were rebuffed, until this major blowout happened in November.

“We were shocked to note that on the day of this latest JIV, when asked about these previous incidents at the exact same wellhead, AITEO denied and NOSDRA kept silent.

“During the course of the JIV, the behaviour and utterances of representatives of NOSDRA and NUPRC called into question their independence and neutrality.

READ ALSO: Bayelsa, regulators disagree on cause of Nembe oil spill

“We are convinced that NOSDRA and NUPRC are biased and are playing a script in cahoot with AITEO.

“We have very convincing evidence which we will bring to light at the appropriate time and through the appropriate fora that NOSDRA and NUPRC are completely biased.

“They have taken a premeditated position in favour of Aiteo against the interest of the people of Bayelsa State and the Niger Delta.

“This is terribly sad and unfortunate given the fact that NOSDRA and NUPRC are supposed to be regulators and as such should be unbiased and act at all times with integrity.

“Finally, the Government of Bayelsa State completely rejects the JIV of Wednesday, December 22, 2021,” the statement read in part.

Dambo maintained that the position of the Bayelsa government is that the cause of the spill was equipment failure and that it would take all appropriate steps to pursue environmental justice for itself and the affected communities.

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