Port Harcourt — Experts on environment in the Niger Delta have kicked against the new mandate given to the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) to burn petrol tankers carrying illegally refined petroleum product in the region.
Addressing newsmen in Port Harcourt, national president of the Nigerian Environmental Society, Anderwest Augustine, said burning of trucks carrying petroleum products in the open exposes the environment to a lot of danger.
Augustine advised the JTF to instead move the products to storage facilities for proper disposal.
“What we are saying is that tankers carrying those illegal products should be escorted to good storage facilities where you can adequately treat or dispose the products rather than burning them in the open. If you burn them in the open, you will be contaminating the air and vegetation”, he said.
Also speaking, Executive Director of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Anyakwee Nsirimovu, said the act of burning tankers in the open will only add to the level of degradation of the environment in the Niger Delta.
“The action will add to the degradation that is already on. We are talking about UNEP report in Ogoni, Shell has messed up Ogoni and Ogoni people are dying of cancer and you are now compounding the problem by openly burning these products. If they were given the order to burn, there should be a central place where it can be done,” he said.
He urged the JTF to engage an independent body to monitor the destruction of such illegally refined products. Meanwhile, The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the state has condemned the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) in the state over what it described as the indiscriminate burning of petrol tankers.
Source: ALL AFRICA
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