Members of Eteo Community In Eleme Local Government Area Of Rivers State Criticize NNPCL For Failing to Compensate Farmers and Fishermen After Oil spill.

Sandra Kenneth 

Community leaders in Eteo in Eleme local government area of Rivers State have criticized the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited for secretly fixing a broken pipeline that caused oil spill without remediating the damages it caused.

The community development committee chairman FORTUNE CHUTTEE who made this known in an interview with NRM's SANDRA KENNETH said the community which is made up of mostly farmers and fishermen have been suffering due to the oil spill that happened in June.

He narrated difficulties in farming, fishing and drinking of clean water in the community.

He lamented that despite calls to the NNPCL they have failed to come for remediation as he frowned at how they went about repairing the bad pipeline and ignoring the people who were directly affected.

FORTUNE called on the state government to come to their aid in ensuring that the multi nationals comes to do the needful.

He said, "our parents use the water to wash and soak cassava, we fish there, we drink from the water, it is wicked for a company to come fix their facility without compensating the people who are affected by their inability to always do a maintenance check on the pipelines".

"We shouldn't suffer for being a host community, Government needs to fight for us, state and federal government needs to fight for us".