BODO CLEAN-UP, THE JOURNEY SO FAR.

Two major oil-spills occurred in Bodo creek in 2008 along SPDC’s Trans Nigerian Pipeline (TNP) spilling significant volumes of oil into the creeks.  Bodo community sought redress for the spills in a Nigerian court and later in the UK High Court.The High Court subsequently awarded a GBP 55million compensation and a directive for SPDC to clean up the Bodo environment through out-of- court settlement between SPDC and Bodo leaders.

Former Dutch Ambassador to Nigeria, His Excellency Bert Ronhaar, sought a speedy intervention by leading a process that would lead to clean-up, remediation and restoration of Bodo creeks.Bert Ronhaar’s consultation with the Nigerian government, SPDC and Bodo community lead to the formation of the Bodo Mediation Initiative (BMI) comprising Bodo community, SPDC, Rivers State government, Oil industry regulators, HYPREP, security agencies, civil society and UNEP. BMI, at the time co-chaired by His Excellency Bert Roonhar and Inemo Samiama, commenced the mediation process on the 24th and 25th October 2013 at a ceremony attended by the then Country Chair of SPDC, Mutiu Sonmonu. BMI after 10 laborious plenary sessions delivered an MOU signed by leader of the SPDC and Chairman of the Bodo Committee on 30th April 2015 and delivered to Bodo people in a General Assembly at Torgbo on the 2nd of May 2015. This agreement marked the commencement of the ambitious project to restore the environment of Bodo.

Phase 1 of the clean-up kicked off on the 6th of September 2017 and was expected to last for approximately 90-180 working days. Some 400 Bodo community members were recruited and trained (IMO 1 etc) before commencing clean-up operations in the creeks, so they could be involved in the clean-up operations. The objective of Phase 1 was to remove free-phase and floating oil on the surface of the water and contained within the upper surfaces of the sediments using a range of techniques including raking of the sediments and agitation of the sediments using low and high- pressure water flushing techniques. Oil liberated from the process was contained by floating booms and collected using absorbent materials. During Phase 1 – considerable quantities of domestic waste were removed from the shoreline of the creeks in addition to dead vegetation branches with oily stains. The completion of Phase 1 has yielded considerable useful information which is being used to design the Phase 2 clean-up scope and techniques.