The situation of the recent oil spill that occurred in Odidi Federated Community and that has now spread to other adjoining communities in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State is a reflection of the poor state of neglect and monitoring by those whose duties or responsibilities are to ensure not only the protection of lives and properties of citizens, but also that of the environment, from degradation.

According to community members affected by the recent spill in the area, the incident has continued for over two months without any action being taken by the oil company involved to contain the spill.

The oil spill was first observed on Friday, February 20, 2026, from the Trans Forcados Pipeline (TFP) under the operational sphere of Heritage Energy Operational Services Limited (HEOSL) in OML 30. In less than three months later, another massive oil spill from the Kremor Manifold loading trunk, one of the TFP allegedly belonging to and managed by HEOSL, was again observed and reported by an anonymous witness, precisely on Friday, May 1, 2026.

“For over two months, there have been spills in their line, and up to this moment, they have not responded to curtail this spill. They have not done any cleanup,” alleged Amb. Truston Gbenekama, Chairman of Odidi community, during a tour of the spill area.

PENGlobal learnt that other communities in the area, aside Odidi, that are also affected include Kunukunuma, Seitorububor, Camp 5, Iva, Ugbai-Sipou I and II, Igbodibigbo, Itagbene I and II, Agbere I and II, Ajagbene I and II, Benaseigha-gbene, Kunukunuma-Sipou, Leigha and Olu-Gbene, all in Warri South-West LGA of the State.

According to the General Secretary of Kunukunuma Federated Community in Gbaramatu Kingdom, Evang. Abraham Tebiano, who earlier led a visit to some affected communities in February, lamented then, the extensive damage done to the livelihoods of the people as they could no longer engage in fishing activities.

He revealed that while HEOSL did respond to their outcry for relief materials, he however lamented that the donated items comprising of two bags of rice, a bag of garri among others, as at then, were far too inadequate to sustain the people. With the reoccurrence of the oil spill yet again, he feared that the situation has been made more dire for the people.

According to reports, there have been over 6,000 recorded oil spill incidents attributed to aging infrastructure, as well as oil theft and sabotage, which are destroying livelihoods, contaminating water, reducing agricultural yields, and causing long-term health issues. However, with the war against oil theft being intensified by the Federal Government through security contractors such as Tantita Security Services Nigeria Limited, which has reduced oil theft and pipeline vandalism, inhabitants are now beaming their focus on the issue of aging infrastructure owned by oil companies.

Lending his voice to the call for a comprehensive environmental and health audits across the Niger Delta and immediate remediation of polluted sites, environmental activist Nnimmo Bassey, speaking at the 2026 Correspondents’ Week organised by the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Rivers State Council, in Port Harcourt, on Monday, May 18, 2026, demanded urgent action on abandoned oil infrastructure, gas flaring and long-burning oil well fires in parts of the region.

The Niger Delta activist, who noted that decades of oil exploration had left severe ecological and public health consequences across oil-producing communities, tasked journalists covering the region to intensify scrutiny of oil companies and government regulators, saying sustained investigative reporting is critical to exposing environmental abuses in the region.

According to Mr Bassey, “The media has the duty and capacity to report the ecocide happening in the Niger Delta factually and in real time,” adding that, “The thing the polluters dread most is having their harmful acts exposed and placed in the public domain.”

But then, in all of these incidence, where is the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), an agency of the federal government tasked with monitoring, detecting and responding to oil spill occurrence? Asides NOSDRA, what efforts have stakeholders such as the Commissioner for Oil and Gas (Delta) made to address the current challenge that has been lingering for months, and subjecting inhabitants to living in an unsafe environment? 

The repeated spill from HEOSL has further exposed the negligence of these agencies of government to the affected population. Such negligent, by failing to intervene timely, was what led to the death of a woman and her four children, who were engulfed in a 2015 fire incident within the same Odidi, arising from oil and gas pollution.

From all indications, it is glaring that lives do not matter in the Niger Delta region, but profits and interests. This is therefore a call on oil companies operating in the region to give utmost attention to the safety of their operations and the environment by ensuring prompt action is taken to curb threats to that objective. Government agencies or representatives on their parts should take seriously the functions of their offices and create easy access for inhabitants to lodge complaints for swift response.

As I write this, inhabitants of contaminated sites in Odidi and elsewhere in the Niger Delta region are slowly dying from prolonged exposure to incessant pollution and their livelihoods plunged deeper into poverty. Human lives should have more value than crude oil.

AUTHOR: Abai Francis, Brand Director, PENGlobal 

IMAGE: A young lad in Odidi community scooping crude oil substance floating on the river into a plastin can. View more photos from the spill site here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Dd8AfMeT4/

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