The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has criticized the federal government’s handling of the gas pipeline explosion off the Bayelsa coast in January, the effect of which has worsened the plight of the already neglected people in the Koluama community and its environs.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the kid gloves with which the government has treated the company responsible for the disaster contrasts sharply with the way oil firms responsible for pollution are treated elsewhere around the world..

It said the government’s poor handling of the whole issue shows total lack of protection for the affected communities, while the oil firm responsible is engaging in tokenism in the name of response, instead of being made to pay a massive fine in addition to a thorough clean-up of the affected area.

”For a community that is already neglected, with no potable water, electricity, schools or health facilities, the Chevron gas pipeline disaster – which triggered a perpetual fire that enveloped communities with toxic smoke – is a double whammy, and the response of the government has deepened the pains of the residents and raised the fears that they could face a repeat of the 1953 disaster that wiped off the ancient Koluama community.

“President Goodluck Jonathan has visited the Koluama community only once since the incident, and even then all he did was to commend the people for their ‘peaceful’ reaction to the disaster that has befallen them. He has neither gone back there nor read the riot act to the company. And the fact that the government officials, including the Minister of Petroleum who also visited the area, did so in a Chevron helicopter and accepted rides in the firm’s boat – as reported in the media – has virtually shut their mouths from any meaningful protest.

”Contrast this with the way the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the US was handled – President Barack Obama visited the affected site three times in as many weeks, the firm was compelled to make huge funds available for clean-up operations, in addition to huge fines, issuance of more licenses for oil exploration in the sea was stopped and a senior BP official had to go – and one will see a government (in Nigeria) that has allowed oil firms to ride roughshod over its people.”

ACN however, urged the various individuals and groups that have been campaigning to ensure a better deal for communities in the oil region to call the attention of the federal government, especially the President, to the need for erring oil companies to pay compensation for their acts of omission, clean up the mess they have made in the region and pay huge fines that could serve as a deterrent and encourage best practices in their oil exploration and related activities.

”The government must stop acting in a manner that suggests that it prefers oil companies to its own people, or that all it is interested in are the windfalls from oil exploration, rather than the well being of the people in the oil communities. If a pollution in the President’s backyard can be treated with so much levity by government officials and rapacious oil firms, there is need for all Nigerians to worry”, the party stated.