Over 168,000 fishermen and 350 communities in Delta and Bayelsa states were hit by the 2011 Bonga oil spill from the off-shore field belonging to Shell Nigeria Production and Exploration Company (SNEPCO).
The paramount ruler of Olobia community in Koluama Kingdom, Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, Howells Levi, disclosed this in an interview in Yenagoa on Monday.
He said the affected fishermen were ordered by oil industry regulators to stop fishing activities to avoid catching contaminated fish.
Levi said the fishermen were deprived of their income whilst the oil spill response and clean-up activities lasted and deserved to be compensated for the loss of their income.
An operational failure at the SNEPCO’s facility in 2011 had resulted in the oil spill which discharged 40,000 barrels of oil into the Atlantic Ocean.
In December 2014, the House of Representatives and National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) recommended a compensation of $3.96 billion for victims of the incident.
Levi said the just-concluded verification of claims of the people showed that six local government areas on the fringe of the Atlantic in Delta and Bayelsa were seriously affected by the spill.
He said: “The Bonga spill elicited a lot of claims many of which were very frivolous; initially more than 2,000 communities inundated Shell with compensation demands.
“But when we appointed attorneys and conducted a verification exercise it was streamlined and we found out that 168,000 persons in 350 communities suffered the negative impact of the spill.”
He said the affected LGAs were Ekeremor , Southern Ijaw, and Brass in Bayelsa while Warri-North, Warri-South and Burutu in Delta each produced 28,000 victims.
The monarch explained that the coastal settlements affected by the Bonga spill in the two states resolved to set up a Spill Impact Verification Committee (SIVC) to fashion out a framework for compensation by SNEPCO.
He said the victims were scrutinised to ensure that only fishermen who reside along the Atlantic were verified and each person was made to depose to an affidavit.
“The purpose was to verify the claims before they are submitted to SNEPCO for payment because we do not want people with frivolous and unsubstantiated claims to endanger the case of genuine victims,” Levi said.
