Ogbodo and Adanta are two villages lying southeast of Isiokpo, the headquarters of Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State. Their population is largely agrarian which also engage in hunting and fishing being surrounding by thick rainforest and rich swamps in the flood plains of the New Calabar River.
Oil was discovered in commercial quantity in the community by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in 1972. But issues arising from the exploitation of oil in the community began to arise in 2000 when the communities experienced their first oil spill.
The spills have left the ecosystem devastated and degraded. The first major spill occurred when a pipeline burst in June 2000. Shell, the owners of the pipeline, according to John Godwin, a native of Adanta, took 18 days to respond to calls to intervene and end the spill, by which time about 50,000 barrels of oil had been spilled.
Shell engaged a contractor to carry out a cleanup of the mess the spill made. Rather than cleanup the land and ponds where the spill occurred, the contractor set fire to the spilled oil, which spread to surrounding farmlands and water bodies and destroyed crops, canoes and fishing nets.
Not only did the villagers take in the pollution, they also suffered the effect of the thick black fumes released by the burning of the oil for the days that the burning lasted. The people took to the mass media to report their predicament, accusing Shell of not taking care of them in a situation caused by its operations. Mrs. Ada Okoro, who said she is a farmhand in Ogbodo, lamented that pollution activities in the area have affected wildlife. We cannot find snails to pick anymore. Even snakes are no longer seen around here,” she said.
The locals alleged that they were cut off from access to potable water while the water provided by Shell was grossly inadequate (10 500-litre water tanks every three days). “People were getting sick and Shell only sent one doctor working a few hours every day, but not on Sundays,” said Mr. Richard Amadi.
In its response, Shell accused the locals of sabotage, alleging they were responsible for the spill. As the matter got intractable, the people rejected the palliative support Shell was providing and demanded that it withdrew its claim that the oil spill was due to sabotage.
The result of the investigation attributed the cause of the spill to old and rusty pipes buried six feet underground.
Shell subsequently proposed to pay a compensation of $100,000 which the community leaders rejected as ridiculous for a community of 150,000 people.
Though Ogbodo community went to court over the 2000 spill, it eventually reached an out of court settlement with Shell for a negotiated compensation amount.
On June 25, 2001, another fire spill occurred at Ogbodo, which led to another fire outbreak. The fire had burned for three days before Shell responded to stop it and clear the impacted site, which it took five days to do. Shell gave to the community as palliatives, 70 bags of rice, 56 bags of beans, 140 sticks of stockfish, 60 bags of salt and takers of water delivered to the community every two days.
In May, 2019, 50,000 barrels of crude oil were spilled into the environment of Ogbodo, which affected the vegetation, farmlands, surface water, loss of wildlife and geological distortion. It also took a psychological toll on the people in the area, whose means of livelihood were destroyed. Again the community settled out of court with Shell over claims for compensation.
Chief S.C. Owhonda, the traditional ruler of Ogbodo, told National Point that despite the destruction of their environment they have not received any compensation from Shell. He alleged that most of the spill were plotted by insiders in the company who benefit from breakage of oil pipelines. He said there are damage assessments contractors and staff of the company who benefit from spillages.
