Group Tackles Savannah Energy Over Gas Leakage in Akwa Ibom Community
… Berates NOSDRA For Accusing Host Community Of Sabotage
By Emmanuel Uffot
Ukanafun Professionals’ Association (UK-PRO), a non-governmental organisation, has taken a swipe at Savannah Energy over the recent gas pipeline leakage in a community in Akwa Ibom.
The group made its position known last Saturday through a press release by its Public Relations Officer, Twoweeks Umoh.
According to the Group, the leakage from the gas pipeline operated by ACCUGAS, a subsidiary of Savannah Energy, across a number of local government areas in Akwa Ibom, was noticed in the Ukanafun axis on August 11.
Although no human life was reported lost from the incident, but residents in the rural communities of Ikot Ukpong and Ikot Inyang Abia in Ukanafun Local Government Area where the leakage occurred which could be liken to oil spillage, were scared, hence scampered for their dear lives.
According to the UK-PRO, authentic information at their disposal have it that, the safety/security measures put in place by Savannah Energy and other stakeholders regarding the incident of the gas leakage in Ukanafun on August 11, 2024, was nothing to write home about.
UK-PRO while accusing the multinational gas company of being insensitive to the plight of the host community, also frowned at National Oil Spill Detective and Response Agency (NOSDRA) of being “spurious” in its claims that the leakage was handwork of sabotage by the host community in their words ” third party”.
UK- PRO’s “The mere saying by an official of NOSDRA that the gas leakage was ‘a clear case of sabotage caused by a third party’ is spurious and offensive to the sensitivity of the people of the community who showed them high degree of cooperation and peaceful disposition for over 15 years”.
The advocacy group also stated:
“From the fact on ground concerning this particular incident of gas leakage at Ikot Ukpong and Ikot Inyang Abia villages in Ukanafun, the UK-PRO wishes to state unequivocally that Savannah Energy has failed
in doing the needful just as we also believe that NOSDRA has a number of questions to answer.
“From what we reliably gathered from our team of observers while on assessment at one of the scenes of the incident, precisely on Tuesday August 13, NOSDRA’s public display of discomfort on noticing the presence of a journalist and blatant refusal to answer a question from the media man even at a place where over a score of government-owned security personnel were present, was indicative of something fishy”
Regarding the security of the Right of Way (RoW), the UK-PRO added “It is unfortunate that a number of essential things that needed to be done have been left undone.
“It is so bad that no security personnel has been found at a pipeline facility which has economic potentials of generating wealth in hundreds of millions of dollars on daily basis.”
The group queried such security lapses which amounts to negligence and disregard to inhabitants, given the fact that it is not so in their United Kingdom headquarters, or their other operating bases in Nigeria being Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt.
“Are security personnel not located in international headquarters of Savannah Energy in the United Kingdom, Nigeria’s seat of government in Abuja, Nigeria’s commercial cities of Lagos or Port Harcourt?”
They found it unacceptable the act by NOSDRA, accusing the inhabitants of sabotage and declining comment on the issue from the press. For them such act amounts to adding salt to injury.
“Such act exhibited by NOSDRA remains unacceptable and the UK-PRO wants NOSDRA to tell the whole world who the “third-party” was.
