Crude oil is flowing in our bloodstream, rural Niger Delta women tell female environmental activists

…Consumption of seafoods soaked in oil is rampant, makes case for cleanup of oil region

Rural women in the oil region have cried out, saying what is flowing right now in their bloodstream is crude oil. The women said seafoods and other plants are soaked in crude oil, which is passed to humans.

This claim is supported by findings of a women-focused non-governmental organisation (NGO) known as Kebetkache Women Development Centre (KWDC), led by Emem Okon.

Okon disclosed what happened in some of the communities they visited for research in the oil region. She told of places in Ogoni where women are mostly below 50 years, who say their mothers died long ago.

She told stories of women with lung diseases and others suffering different breathing defects, saying most of the food they eat is poisoned with carcinogens.

The activist further painted a grim picture of the human impact of pollution on women and local communities, recounting testimony from a woman in Otuabagi community.

“One of the women in Otuabagi (Oloibiri area) said if you cut my waist, you will not see blood, you will see crude oil,” Okon said.

She pleaded with the media to expose hidden clauses in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and the Niger Delta pollution.

Okon, who is the Executive Director of Kebetkache, charged journalists to intensify investigations into environmental degradation in the Niger Delta.

Okon spoke during the keynote address at the Dinner Night of the Correspondents’ Week organised by the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Port Harcourt, with support from Renaissance Africa Energy Company, Nigeria LNG and Kebetkache Women Development Centre.

The 2026 Correspondents’ Week has the theme, ‘The imperatives of comprehensive cleanup of the Niger Delta Environment: Role of the Media.’

She said the media must move beyond routine reporting and begin to interrogate environmental policies, oil industry practices and government actions affecting communities in the Niger Delta.

“Environmental degradation in the Niger Delta demands urgent action,” she said.

“The media should take up the PIA and expose the hidden clauses, investigate, and interrogate these things.”

Okon urged journalists to help drive public awareness around environmental justice and push the government to extend the ongoing Ogoni cleanup to other polluted parts of the Niger Delta.

“The media needs to make the government realise that we need to extend the Ogoni cleanup to the entire Niger Delta. We must begin now.”

She noted that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had estimated that full environmental restoration of Ogoniland could take up to 30 years, warning that waiting for completion before addressing pollution in the larger Niger Delta would worsen ecological damage.

She also criticised what she described as misplaced priorities in government intervention efforts, particularly plans to establish a museum in polluted communities without addressing environmental devastation.

“We are told the federal government is now building a museum in Oloibiri, which to me is another level of deception,” she said.

“Communities will begin to think the museum is going to bring something good for them, and then they will sit and expect, and nothing reasonable will come out.”

Okon tasked journalists to simplify technical environmental reports and laws for ordinary citizens, saying many communities remain unaware of policies that directly affect them.

According to her, independent reporting is essential in exposing the gap between environmental policies and realities on ground.

“Communities most affected are often defeated. Some of them don’t even know that they can speak out.”

“They abstain because they know that if they speak up, they are speaking against very powerful forces — the corporations, the government. They have the power, they have the authority, they have the money.”

Okon commended the Correspondents’ Chapel for sustaining conversations around environmental justice in the Niger Delta and expressed hope that collective action would restore the region for future generations.

Her position was supported by Constance Meju, a chief and a renowned environmental and gender rights advocate, who warned that decades of oil pollution in the Niger Delta have gone beyond environmental degradation to direct human consumption of crude oil through contaminated seafood and water sources.

Meju also spoke at the Dinner Night and said oil spill response efforts in the Niger Delta remained grossly inadequate compared to international standards, leaving communities exposed to long-term health risks.

“In the Niger Delta, there is no oil spill site that has been cleaned properly,” she said.

She compared Nigeria’s oil spill response system with international best practices, arguing that weak enforcement and poor remediation culture have worsened environmental injustice in the region.

“When oil spill occurred in the US, after the site was cleaned up, President Barack Obama visited the site and was dissatisfied. He told the operator to go back and clean the place,” she said.

“But here in the Niger Delta, oil spill sites are shabbily cleaned and most of them not cleaned at all.”

Warning: a poisoned food chain

Meju issued a stark warning on food safety, insisting that pollution has already entered the food chain in oil-producing communities.

“If you eat fresh fish in the oil region, I want to tell you that you’re eating oil,” she said.

“If you eat shrimps and other seafood, you have been eating crude oil.”

She warned that continued exposure to polluted waterways has altered marine life and posed serious long-term health risks to residents who depend on fishing for survival.

The activist also linked environmental destruction to rising youth unemployment and dependency in the Niger Delta, saying traditional livelihoods have collapsed due to pollution.

“In the time past, as kids, when we needed money, we used to go and fish, but since the devastation, our youth are no longer working. There’s an entitlement,” she said.

She warned that the loss of productive livelihoods has created a dependency mindset among young people struggling to survive in polluted communities.

“There’s a dangerous mentality for you to believe that people have to work for you,” she added.

Meju called on journalists to intensify investigative reporting on oil pollution and play a stronger role in holding multinational companies accountable.

“This is the best position to do the necessary advocacy,” she said.

“Because we are the ones they listen to. Anybody who is the most powerful in this country, he respects journalists. He fears journalists.”

She urged the media to use its influence to ensure oil companies comply with environmental laws and fully rehabilitate impacted sites.

Meju, who is a Director at the Centre for Environment Media and Development Communications, commended the Correspondents’ Chapel for drawing attention to the Niger Delta environment.

“I believe that the Correspondents’ Week, looking at the Niger Delta, looking at oil and how we can clean up the Niger Delta, is to begin to understand where we are, why we are where we are, and how we can move forward. Because if you don’t know what your problem is, you can never solve it,” she said.

Meju accused some oil companies of failing to clean up the environment before divesting their assets. “I want to tell you that there is no spill site in the region that Shell has cleaned correctly. I have been to the K-Dere community in Ogoni, and what was supposed to be a cleaned-up area, you will still see oil, the one they have abandoned, you will still see oil,” she stated.

She stated that the politics in the Niger Delta region is different, is because of oil.

Opaka Dokubo, National Vice President of the NUJ, cautioned that political distractions could derail urgent environmental remediation efforts if the media fails to maintain pressure.

“If we don’t set the agenda for urgent environmental remediation of the Niger Delta, the politicians will continue to do what they are doing,” he said.

He urged journalists to sustain advocacy through structured engagements such as symposiums and policy-focused dialogues.

Ignatius Chukwu, a veteran journalist, called for award foundations to best reports in environment and cleanup to drive more reporting in that direction.

Abdul-Hameed Oladipupo, Publisher of Asiwaju Trumpet Magazine, called for greater involvement of journalists in governance, arguing that media professionals possess the knowledge required to run public institutions effectively.

“Journalists are better administrators; we can run this country better than politicians,” he said.

Ijeoma Tubosia, the Rivers State NUJ Secretary, emphasised the importance of sustained environmental reporting in shaping public policy and awareness.

“Environment is life. We must continue to set the agenda because, as journalists, we are the agenda setters.”

The Week ended with renewed concerns over environmental safety, food contamination and the long-term health impacts of oil pollution, as stakeholders called for stronger enforcement, improved cleanup practices and sustained media advocacy across the Niger Delta.

All stakeholders agreed with Okon that cleanup must go beyond Ogoni to all of the oil region to save Nigeria, warning that limiting remediation efforts to Ogoni alone would leave large parts of the oil-producing region in continued ecological ruin.

Setting the tone for the discourse, Amaechi Okonkwo, chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel, urged Journalists to hold the Niger Delta governments accountable with regard to the Ecological Fund.

Okonkwo stated that while the international oil companies (IOCs) have been blamed for the underdevelopment of the region, the state governments have also failed to intentionally utilise the 13% derivation funds, as well as the ecological funds, to develop the region.

He said: “We need to also reflect on the activities of our governments, regional government or state government. Let us remember that at some point in trying to manage the problem with oil pollution and the environment, the federal government created what is called the Ecological Fund.

“Ecological Fund is just like the excess crude, the 13% derivation, and so many others that I may not remember. All of these were intended to, on paper, cater to the needs of the environment, especially those areas where oil is extracted, so that they will use the funds to ameliorate the negative effects of the exploration and pollution when it occurs.

“But in Rivers State, we cannot identify over the years any project that is tied to the ecological fund. So it is with many of the other states.

“And so, as journalists in our editorials, in our special programmes, I think the time has come for us to begin to demand that those target funds will no longer be blown away, but that they will begin to be tied to the purposes for which they are created,” he said.

Okonkwo also submitted that while there is significant progress with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) Host Community Development Trust (HCDT), it is important for journalists to probe the actual utilisation of such funds.

“Through the PIA, there is the host community trust, which is 3% of the operational cost of oil. This one is for the communities. Let us begin to ask questions.

“How is this fund managed among the communities that bear the brunt of oil exploration? He said.

Okonkwo demanded that lawmakers at both the National and State Assemblies of oil-producing and bearing communities in the region channel their constituency projects towards the protection and remediation of the environment.

“The primaries that have just taken place have seen so many people come up as legislators, and they will represent so many areas and communities, including the ones that experience pollution.

“Let us begin to demand from them what they do with their consequences fund. Can they direct their constituency funds into ameliorating the issues of oil pollution in their immediate environment?

“Can they begin to demand legislation that will demand responsive environmental practices by oil companies and even individuals in the community?” Okonkwo stressed.

He thanked Okon, chairman of the event, who is the executive director of Kabetkeche Women Development Centre, Nigeria LNG, the NUJ leadership in Rivers State, and all who contributed in making the week a success.