Oil Spill: Kpea Community Women Demand Urgent Clean-Up, Relief From Govt.

Women of oil impacted Kpea Community in Ogoni, Rivers State, have called for urgent intervention by the federal and state government to address the impact of multiple oil spills in the community.
Woman leader of the community told National Point at Bori, that women are going through hell because oil spills keep distorting their livelihoods and lives.
Mrs Manuel Lesor who was in Bori for a three-day conference for Ogoni women farmers organized by the Lekeh Development Foundation, said there is urgent need for government to organize a clean-up of the spills fast destroying the peoples’ health, water sources and vegetation.
She said:
“Oil spill is affecting us badly. Some of us, our skins are damaged; some of us have small sicknesses in our bodies. Our land is spoilt because, with the oil spill, when rain falls, it washes the oil spills into our water; our area of fishing is destroyed”.
According to her, the level of water contamination is so high that, “when we smell it, it is as if gas is in it,” thus exposing the people to danger.
She also expressed worry that at the time of this chat, there had been no sign of official response to the most recent spill in the community despite alerts to that effect.
Manuel lamented that access to land for farming is further reducing with more land being upturned under the HYPREP clean-up.
Asked the women’s most pressing concern, the woman leader called for urgent cleaning and relief materials as the spills obstruct occupational farming and fishing livelihoods.
The three-day conference organized by Lekeh Development Foundation with the theme, ‘Building Soil Health for Climate Action Toward Sustainability Agriculture,’ was aimed at helping women understand climate change issues and how to mitigate the effects through adaptation of agroecology.
It brought experts in climate change and agroecoogy from the UK, the academia and civil society who taught the women new methods of farming for improved results despite climate change challenges.
With new knowledge gained, the woman leader said she was going home to pass down to her women how to improve their farming for more gain and sustainability.
“My general impression is that it is about farmers. There are many things which I did not know of before which I learnt from here, which they explained more and even teach me to know more on my farming business.
“What I will do now is that now that I have learnt how to apply organic manure on my farmland, I now know that those waste I was throwing away are good for use and better than the chemical fertilizer that we are using,” she stated.
The farmer said there is more to gain from mixed farming which agroecology is all about.
“I plant cassava, yam, ugu (pumpkin vegetable), and plantain. I plant coconut, pepper, maize, melon… A few months ago when there was pepper scarcity, I was enjoying because I did not buy, I was plucking my pepper to cook and dashed people too from the little that I planted in my backyard.
“So, I appreciate and admire the teachings and as a woman leader, I am going back to inform my women about what I have learnt and what to do.
They women were also advised to embrace cooperatives as a sure platform for growing stronger and being heard by policy makers.