The Bonny Environmental Consultants Committee (BECC) has called on President Bola Tinubu to ensure that the relevant regulatory agencies do the needful in addressing issues associated with the fire outbreak at Cawthorne Channel 1 in Iloamatoru Community.

Iloamatoru Community, which owns Cawthorne Channel 1 where the particular facility gutted by fire is located and hosts several oil and gas facilities for various multinationals, is in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State.

In a statement signed by its Chairman and Secretary, Professor Ibitoru Hart, and Amairigha Hart, respectively, BECC stated that it was closely monitoring the situation, urging all relevant stakeholders to ensure concerns regarding the incident were adequately addressed.

“As the environmental watchdog of Bonny Kingdom, we have taken notice of the fire incident that occurred at about 2pm on Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at Cawthorne Channel 1 in Iloamatoru Community in Bonny LGA.

We are keenly monitoring the situation as it unfolds and wish to advise all relevant stakeholders to ensure that concerns regarding the incident are adequately addressed and negative fallouts ameliorated.

We call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to ensure the relevant regulatory agencies under him charged with the responsibility of ensuring regulatory compliance with extant laws guarding the environment, as well as global best practices do their jobs diligently.

We do not lose sight of the fact that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) belongs to the Federal Government, as situation that could impair the government’s capacity to insist on compliance, accountability and responsibility in the present circumstance.

We, however, urge the President, as the Minister of Petroleum to rise above such pedestrian consideration and demand accountability from the management of NNPCL with regards to what has happened in Cawthorne Channel 1.

We call on the President to take cognizance of the fact that in the wake of this incident, aquatic life, verdant vegetation, economic sustenance, human health, thriving livelihoods, among others have been circumvented, and this appears to be following on the heels of the previous ones at Alakiri and Bukuma.

Considerations that socio-economic survival of the affected people, communities and settlements will now engender forced displacements, unplanned migrations, unforeseen exposures to uncontemplated risks, and worst of all the devastation of the environment in that region.

Mr. President should also take note that the main river at the location of the fire incident is now burdened by debris of vessels and barges that sunk upon impact during the incident thus rendering the waterways very dangerous to navigate; not to talk of the large volumes of crude oil that have been discharged into the sea and carried about by the tide and spread across large swathes of mangrove forest.

BECC, therefore, demanded that the President compel the NNPCL to urgently provide relief materials, compensate the affected people, communities and settlements, begin the process of remediation of the environment, and also urgently review the state of their facilities in that area to ensure they are fit for purpose and not obsolete.

The Committee also charged the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), federal and state Ministries of Environment, amongst other regulatory agencies to full enforce the extant laws implicated in the incident.