The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA and
the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, are
currently meeting to map out plans to process and access compensation
for victims of oil spills in Nigeria from the International Oil
Pollution Compensation Fund, IOPC.
This is just as Nigeria continues to record a downward trend in oil spills across the country in the last seven years.
Speaking
at the National workshop on Oil Pollution Liability and Compensation
yesterday, Minister of Environment, Dr. Mohammad Abubakar, said that the
move was to draw attention to the scope and implementation of
International Oil pollution fund focusing on the procedure related to
compensation in case of oil spill.
Abubakar
who was represented by the Director General of the National Oil Spill
Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Mr. Idris Musa also said that the
workshop will also deepen the understanding of common challenges and
complexities of oil spills.
Abubakar also said
that the need to work out modalities on how to adequately and fairly
compensate both victims of oil spills pollution and the environment
cannot be over emphasized.
Consideration should
not only be given to socio-economic losses suffered by individuals or
communities, but also to ecological damage by way of effective
restoration of the damaged ecosystem.
Particular
attention must be paid to how our citizen can adhere strictly to the
procedure for accessing the benefits inherent in the International Oil
Pollution Compensation Fund, IOPC.
At the same
vein, in his opening remarks, Director General of NIMASA, Dr. Dakuku
Peterside said that Nigeria needs to develop strategies and policies for
effective shoreline response.
Meanwhile, there
has been a downward trend in the number of oil spills as only 30,000
tons of oil spills were recorded last year compared to 2.26 metric tons
in 2012. While 2.65 metric tons of oil spills were
recorded in 2013, 2.7 metric tons were recorded against 2014 and in
2015, 1.8 metric tons was reported just as 815,000 metric tons in 2016
and 24,000 metric tons in 2017.
