By Daniel Abia

Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) has condemned  .the continuous engagement in artisanal crude oil refining activities in some communities across the Niger Delta despite intense campaigns and advocacy against crude oil theft, artisanal refining, and pollution.

The group’s Executive Director, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, in reaction to the explosion at an illegal crude oil refining site in Rumucholu, Ibaa, in the Emohua local government area of Rivers State which left over 15 people, including pregnant women, dead to said such calamity would have been avoided if the right thing was done.

 Fyneface said that if the intense campaigns against pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft, and artisanal refining mounted by the organization and other stakeholders, including the state and federal government, were adhered to, deaths of this nature would have been avoided.

Regretting the deaths of people involve in the disaster, Fyneface said that if the federal government had issued the 18 modular refinery licenses approved by the former President Muhammadu Buhari administration and established the Presidential Artisanal Crude Oil Refining Development Initiative (PACORDI), “which modernizes, standardizes, legalizes, and integrates artisanal crude oil refining into the nation’s economy, among others, as alternative livelihood opportunities for artisanal crude oil refiners in the Niger Delta, these deaths would have been avoided”.

The organization thus called on artisanal refiners in the Niger Delta to stop acts of crude oil theft and artisanal refineries to avoid unnecessary deaths of this nature while calling on the federal government to immediately approve measures that provide alternative livelihood opportunities for artisanal refiners in Nigeria.

“We call on the federal government to speed up the process of issuing the 18 licenses earlier approved by the administration of former President Muhammad’s Bihari.

“This is one sure way of ending crude oil theft and unnecessary explosions which claims many innocent lives whenever they occur”.