A Nigerian Non-Governmental Organization, Environment
Rights Action (ERA) has called on the Nigerian
National Petroleum Company (NNPC) to take urgent 
steps to clean up the environment at Imasabor
Village, near Ologbo, in South Nigeria, 
where a major pipeline rupture occurred.
ERA made this demand in Benin City, the capital
of Edo State in Nigeria, following a field report it conducted
in the village after a March 6 pipeline rupture
which has prevented the people of the village from going  
to work in their farms.

The ERA report called for relief materials to be urgently
supplied by the NNPC to the local
people and that adequate compensation should
also be paid to those whose farms and crops were
polluted by the fuel which exuded from the ruptured
pipeline. This reporter gathered that the pipeline which
got ruptured is used to convey refined petroleum
products from a nearby refinery to the Federal
Capital Territory, Abuja, six hundred miles away.

Investigation revealed that the same pipeline 
had in May 2001 suffered some leakages from exactly
the same point where the present rupture occurred
and that the incident happened again because the mended
portion failed to withstand the high pressure 
pumping which took place at the refinery on March 6.

This reporter learnt that the people of Imasabor
were in their farms on the fateful day when they 
began to perceive the strong odour of fuel, after which
the broken pipeline started spraying the liquid into 
the surrounding forests and farms, raising the fear
of possible fire outbreak in the area.
When this reporter reached the scene of the incident the 
surrounding farms, the forest and footpaths were completely
doused with fuel and the fumes of the latter hung
heavily in the air.

Three large pools were also formed from the fuel which 
spewed from the broken pipeline and at the time of writing
this report NNPC officials were seen trying to plug
the ruptured pipeline in order to put it back into action.
The local people however complained about the nonchallant
attitude of the oil company as regards their safety
and appealed to sympathetic groups to come to their aid
as the basis of their economic survival has been destroyed 
by the ruptured pipeline.

Imasabor village is an oil producing community in Edo State 
of Nigeria, and oil production began in the farming village in 
I970 when Pan Ocean Corporation, an indigenous concern, 
commenced oil exploitation.