NIGERIANS are full of expectations over what the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, will do to check the prevalent cases of oil spills across the oil exploration belt. Its task seems simple — compel oil companies to consider the effect of their operations on their host communities.

Concerns over oil spillage are not new. Even NOSDRA was established by law in 2006, to co-ordinate implementation of the National Oil Spill Contingency plan of 1990, the year Nigeria signed the International Oil Pollution Response and Co-operation Convention.

NOSDRA is to ensure that oil exploration activities in Nigeria meet environmental best practices, effect timely and effective response to oil spills and ensure proper clean-up and remediation of all impacted sites.

If the oil companies were willing to comply with the existing national environmental legislations in their areas of operation, NOSDRA’s challenges would have been minimal. It has been monitoring oil spill sites and persuading recalcitrant oil companies to uphold the integrity of the environment of their host communities but with limited result.

Does NOSDRA have the capacity to handle the obstinacy of oil companies polluting their operational areas? Sometimes the spills spread to communities that are kilometres away from the exploration site. Such communities are hardly considered for compensation.

Last week the agency sanctioned Agip Oil for neglecting oil spills in Rivers State, particularly for delaying its response, which NOSDRA thought was disheartening when compared to the handling of the oil spill that occurred on the Gulf of Mexico.

A major part of that response came from the uncompromising attitude of the American government British Petroleum to clean the pollution and pay adequate compensation. It monitored the use of dispersants and other chemicals to ensure safety of the environment.

In Nigeria, it has always taken prolonged and costly litigations to get oil companies to accept responsibility for oil spill. Government shown scant interest, leaving the communities to battle for their rights, including the refusal of government to allow them benefit from the oil that displaces their existence.

It is important to streamline NOSDRA’s functions which overlaps with other government agencies like National Institute for Maritime Accident and Safety, NIMASA, which has over lapping function of monitoring oil spill on the high seas from vessel accidents. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources is also trying to create a parallel agency to NOSDRA. Such untidy atmosphere favours oil companies which prefer weak and fragmented regulatory and enforcement agencies.

Funding for NOSDRA also belies its functions. The lack of capacity will become manifest when it wants to clean up Ogoniland.

Nigeria must join the rest of the world in the campaign for sustainable use of the earth’s resources; oil should be a blessing, not a curse on the nation. It is only when government is serious with agencies that have these responsibilities that the oil companies would operate differently.

From the miniscule fines they pay for environmental violations to their relations with their host communities, government emboldens them to carry on with the devastation of their operational bases.