The Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has warned that the deaths of at least 37 people in Okrika, Rivers State, should serve as a grim wake-up call over the decades of hydrocarbon pollution, toxic emissions and environmental neglect across the Niger Delta.
HOMEF Executive Director and environmentalist, Nnimmo Bassey, raised the concerns in a commentary following the reported deaths at Okari Jetty in Okrika, where suspected illegal oil operators were reportedly exposed to toxic fumes while siphoning petroleum products from an illegally tapped pipeline. Several others were reported missing.
The Rivers State Police Command has confirmed that deaths occurred but said investigations were ongoing to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident. Authorities have also cautioned that the reported casualty figure and the exact substance involved were still subject to verification.
Bassey said the absence of an official or independent investigation into the cause of the deaths was troubling, noting that the victims may have been overcome by noxious gases released under high pressure or may have drowned after losing consciousness and falling into the river.
He argued that whatever the immediate circumstances of the tragedy, the incident should not be treated simply as another case of illegal oil theft.
“This horrendous incident should be seen as an alarm over the extreme hydrocarbon and toxic waste pollution that has gone on for decades in the Niger Delta,” Bassey said.
According to him, the tragedy exposes what he described as the wider failure of oil companies and government agencies to adequately safeguard communities living around petroleum infrastructure.
Bassey warned against allowing the deaths to become another statistic after the immediate mourning subsides, stressing that the environmental and public-health implications of petroleum activities in the Niger Delta require sustained attention.
He drew a parallel between the Okrika incident and the prolonged methane-gas emissions reported in Bille, also in Rivers State, where methane has reportedly been bubbling across parts of the community since December 2025. He said the continued emissions posed risks beyond fire outbreaks, with residents allegedly experiencing illnesses that should prompt urgent investigation.
Bassey criticised what he described as inadequate responses to the Bille situation, arguing that the provision of relief materials, fire extinguishers or a fire truck that cannot adequately access affected areas cannot substitute for addressing the source of the gas emissions.
He said the situation in Bille demonstrated the danger of allowing communities located around oil and gas infrastructure to remain exposed to potentially hazardous emissions without comprehensive environmental and health assessments.
The HOMEF director also pointed to other unresolved environmental hazards across the Niger Delta, including a reported oil-well blowout at Ofiomina-Ama Alakiri in Okrika LGA, where an inferno has reportedly continued since February 2024, and the prolonged burning of the Ororo-1 oil well off Awoye in Ondo State.
He further cited recent reports of an oil spill at Nembe Creek on OML 29, which has been attributed to operational failure, as another indication of the risks associated with ageing or deteriorating petroleum infrastructure.
Bassey said the continued presence of crude oil spills, gas flaring, burning oil and deteriorating pipelines creates a potentially dangerous cocktail of pollutants, including benzene and hydrogen sulphide, which can cause serious health effects.
He questioned how many more deaths and environmental disasters would be required before authorities take decisive action to clean up contaminated communities, extinguish persistent oil fires, decommission obsolete infrastructure and properly secure petroleum pipelines.
The environmentalist also called for implementation of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environment Commission Report, alongside a transition process that, in his view, prioritises affected communities and workers rather than merely transferring environmental and economic burdens under the guise of energy transition.
For Bassey, the Okrika tragedy represents more than the deaths of suspected oil thieves. It is, he argued, a stark reminder of the broader environmental crisis confronting the Niger Delta and the urgent need for government and oil companies to address the conditions that continue to expose communities to hydrocarbons, toxic emissions and unsafe petroleum infrastructure.
“Our lives are worth more than crude oil”, Bassey said, urging authorities to treat the latest tragedy as a call to action rather than another episode that will fade from public attention after the victims are buried.
