By AKOMA CHINWEOKE
In the oil-producing states of Nigeria, an average of one oil spill occurs every week. In the delicate ecosystem of the Niger Delta, these oil-related accidents cause grave damage to the environment and all that it harbours  leaving their victims impoverished and underdeveloped.

Evaristus Uzamere

In this Interview, Mr Evaristus Uzamere, a health safety and environment consultant with over 30years experience  in the country’s oil and gas industry, says health safety and environment should be taken as a serious business in Nigeria

Many believe that the discovery of oil in Niger-delta regions has caused the people more pain than transform their lives especially with the high rate pollution going -on in the area. Do you agree?

Well, it is not a question of sharing views as the facts are there. The people in the Niger-Delta are not having a fair share of what should come to them.  Instead they are recipients of environmental degradation. So, you can’t say it is a blessing to them but it has been a blessing to some fraudulent Nigerians. The way I want to look at the issue is not whether the region or any part of the country is suffering because of oil. Oil is not really the problem but leadership. When you have low quality leadership, it affects everything.

How soon do you see us getting out of this problem that is largely responsible for our retarded growth?
We will. A system has a way of cleansing itself but that takes a long time. The opposite of leadership is revolution and we don’t want that. What we need is a topdown approach, that is leaders should lead. We have always had leaders but I’m talking about good leadership, values, governance and followership. If we want to achieve success in running the country, we must start with a vision. Good leadership starts from the heart of the leader.

The leader must have a clear picture of where he wants to take the country to in the next 50 or 100 years. So, it starts from the inside of the leader and then you have to epitomize all that visionary qualities so that when people would see it in you So, there must be no variance between what you say and do  so that the led can key in into what you are doing.

The late President Umaru Yar’Adua came up with the idea of Vision 20:2020. How in your view can the country make it become an integral element in our development drive?

Our problem is not  vision 20: 2020. The essence of vision 20: 2020 is for Nigeria to be in the top 20 economies in the world but if look at the quality of lives in about 127 countries, Nigeria is number 36 in terms of the economic strength in the world but in terms of quality of life we are about 150 or so.  That means economic power does not translate to quality of life in Nigeria. What a nation needs is quality of life not mere economic power. So it is the quality of life for the Nigerian that is important.

The issue of environmental degradation has, over the years, remained unaddressed.  What safety measures do you think government should embark upon to  avoid serious spillage as witnessed in the Gulf of Mexico?.

The issue is not whether accidents will happen or not. It is a question of having a contingency plan if it does happen and  reducing the probability of it happening to a level that is reasonably low.

These are the things we should ask ourselves. On the 20th of April, there was an explosion and 11 oil rig workers were killed on Deep water Horizon, a drilling rig working for BP.

A week before that time a rig worker informed BP  and Transocean staff that there was leakage on the blow out preventers . The staff simply shut down the leaking valve and started operating the good one and that was a poor design. A good design should have made it impossible to operate, that is the whole thing should have  been shut down.

There were so many activities going -on on  the rig. Reports have it that  BP PLC wanted to finish the drilling so that they could bring in production rig and start making money. So,  the emphasis was lets quickly finished this business. So , if you have those values in your heart, you will always have such disaster.

So, everything must start with some values in the heart of the leader. So, if it is not safe or it cannot be continued safely don’t do it For a major explosion to occur, it takes multiple transgressions. Again, this was not supposed to happen because for the explosive gas to come up, you normally have the cementing job being done. So, why did the cement fail. So, it is a question of multiple failure.
What lessons can we, as an oil producing nation, learn from the disaster?

We must insist on good safety culture. Without effective HSE culture, disaster would continue to happen.  The government should ensure that the bill of  the Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria still awaiting consideration  should be passed so that the professionals would have a  legal framework to operate. Also, the government should make it mandatory for every major organization to employ safety professionals because they are like the conscience of the company.

Somebody must be able to say no our company works ethically and does not wish its workers dead. So, let’s do things right. But if you don’t have somebody who is taking that decision, then it is a question of time before disaster  strikes. For the company owners they must know that safety is good business.

If you work safely then you would not be spending huge money you would use  in clearing the mess. Look at BP now, the company had to place 20billion dollars in an escrow account to pay for damages and litigations that would come after whereas they have already spent about two billion dollars trying to clean up. So, if only they had done the right thing, they would not be doing this now.

In Nigeria it appears that whenever oil spills occur oil companies with the backing of government rather than think of remedy most times point at victims as  the cause of their tragedy. How would you react to that?

Well, in Nigeria and other nations,  the first thing is the legal framework because we are a nation under the rule of law. So, the law should be clear as to what should be in place to prevent these environmental disasters and in the event that it happens compensation that should be paid should be well specified.

In Nigeria, we have laws on environment but who is looking after the laws and doing the inspections to ensure that things are done properly. Even though we have organizations that are expected to do that but their hands are tied. It is either they have no sufficient staff , equipment or knowledge.

So, the problem is always there. But I would want to have a situation where each company takes this on board and believes that health safety and environment is serious business.

They should also know that the easiest way out of business is through environmental disaster. There are very few companies on earth that can withstand major environmental disasters.  BP which is worth about 150 billion dollars is still alive because it is the biggest British company . That is why it is still struggling to exist after the disaster. If what the company is passing through now happens to any of the operating companies in Nigeria, it will be a total blow.

So, companies need to understand that it is in their interest to prevent the disasters but we are also aware that in some cases some hoodlums vandalize oil pipelines. So you can’t compensate people for cutting pipes and that’s another area to look at.

The Niger-delta problem is not about explosions but that of years of neglect.  We must be grateful to the late president Yar”Adua for initiating the amnesty programme for the militants but somebody must take it to the next level. .

We need somebody to  start righting the wrongs and show commitment  towards addressing the long neglect the region has suffered by providing the needed amenities that would bring about the development of the region.

So, if the people have a good job and their children are in school, those children would be the people preaching against violence. So there must arise a leader who would right the wrongs.