Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has cautioned against reducing the Okrika deaths incident to oil theft alone, stressing that if illegal tampering is established, it must be addressed.
This was as HOMEF stressed that the wider conditions in which communities live alongside hazardous petroleum infrastructure must be confronted and addressed.
It therefore called for urgent measures to protect people living in communities where petroleum activities and infrastructure are located.
HOMEF’s statement followed reports of deaths at Okari Jetty Creeks in Okrika Local Government Area of Rivers State in which initial reports claimed that as many as 37 people were feared dead after allegedly inhaling fumes from a petroleum product locally referred to as “Indorama fuel”, technically known as CRACK C5.
Speaking on the unfortunate incident, Executive Director of HOMEF, Dr Nnimmo Bassey, stressed that the incident should serve as a warning about the dangers faced by communities in petroleum-producing areas.
Bassey said; “Up to 37 persons are reported to have breathed their last early this week at Okrika in Rivers State, Nigeria. Others are missing. There has yet to be an official or independent investigation into what caused the fatalities.
“Obviously, the last breath of the dead may have been of noxious gases released under high pressure. They may have been asphyxiated by inhaling hazardous gases, or they may have drowned when they had gone unconscious and fallen into the river.
“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. It is hoped that this sad incident of mass death will rouse oil companies and responsible government agencies to their duty to safeguard the health of the people and the environment,” he said.
There were also reports of an explosion, even as the police of the Rivers State Command confirmed the incident, stating that there is ongoing investigations, while the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) stated that its personnel sighted four corpses, saying that the earlier casualty figure had not been fully verified.
There are also conflicting accounts of what the victims were doing at the time of the incident as some reports linked the incident to access to petroleum products from a pipeline.
Some residents and relatives of the victims however, disputed the account of the security agencies with a wife of one of the victims said her husband was a fisherman.
HOMEF insisted that the uncertainty does not diminish the central concern, stressing that people reportedly died in an environment dominated by petroleum infrastructure, amid reports of an explosion and exposure to petroleum fumes.
HOMEF therefore cautioned against prematurely labelling the deceased until the facts are established, adding that there are other unresolved petroleum hazards, including the wellhead fire at Ofiomina-Ama, Okrika, which has reportedly been burning since February 2024.
Bassey also cited methane bubbling reported in Bille, Rivers State, since December 2025, and the Ororo-1 oil well fire off Awoye, Ondo State, which has been burning since May 2020.
According to Bassey; “Fires may not be breaking out everywhere in the Niger Delta. Not yet. But the unfolding environmental genocide is inescapable. The spilt crude, the gas flares and the burning crude contain a deadly cocktail of compounds that our people should not be subjected to.
“These hydrocarbons contain benzene, a known carcinogen, hydrogen sulphide, and other highly volatile hydrocarbons that can irritate, choke and kill. Life will go on, and international oil companies and their proxies will keep dumping crude into the creeks and rivers of the Niger Delta.
“How many more tragedies before we know it is time to clean up the Niger Delta, quench the roaring flames, dismantle and remove decrepit facilities and secure all pipelines?
“It is time to implement the Bayelsa State Oil and Environment Commission Report. It is time to act on just decommissioning and not just parrot calls for unjust transition. Our lives are worth more than crude oil,” he stressed.
HOMEF therefore called on the Federal and State governments, NUPRC, NOSDRA and petroleum operators and regulators to strengthen protection for communities around petroleum infrastructure, ensure facilities are properly maintained and secured.
It also called for the provision of functional emergency response systems, and to ensure that communities are informed about petroleum hazards and have adequate safety measures, warning systems, monitoring and emergency response arrangements.
HOMEF noted that the Okrika incident is part of the wider history of petroleum extraction in the Niger Delta, where communities have endured pollution, disrupted livelihoods, and prolonged exposure to environmental hazards.
It emphasized that obsolete, unsafe or abandoned petroleum infrastructure must not remain a continuing threat to communities and ecosystems.
HOMEF commiserated with the families and communities affected by the Okrika incident and called for appropriate support for those affected, just as it insisted on assessment of health and environmental risks around petroleum infrastructure, and insisted on transparent establishment of the circumstances and actual casualty figures in Okrika, and the proper decommissioning of obsolete facilities and the restoration of polluted environments.
