A systematic review of the impacts of oil spillage on residents of oil-producing communities in Nigeria

Abstract

Oil spillage is common in oil-producing communities of Nigeria and it impacts negatively on the lives of the residents of these communities. This study analysed available research data on oil spillage incidents in these communities to determine the main causes of the spillage and its impacts on the residents. A systematic review of published studies was carried out and 20 studies were identi ed from the literature search. The main causes of oil spills were identi ed as sabotage, oil theft, illegal re ning, mystery spill, operational failures, and corrosion. Over 70% of the spillages were discovered to be as a result of sabotage by restive youths. Oil spillage was found to impact on the health, source of livelihood, food security, basic amenities, and socio-economic state of the residents. The major interventions were initiated by multinational companies and were targeted at improving health services, education, infrastructure, skill acquisition, and employment, which will in turn reduce the occurrence of violence, insurgency, and human tra cking in the oil-producing communities. This study highlights the immediate and long-term consequences of oil spills on the residents of oil-host communities in Nigeria. The causes of the spills were attributed mainly to the inaction of government regulatory agencies in oil exploration. Thus, it is recommended that government regulatory agencies should be revamped and repositioned to effectively perform their duties.Interventions should be targeted at addressing the causes of the agitation of the indigenes by involving them in the decision-making process. Also, an appropriate remediation strategy should be adopted to clean up the oil spills. IntroductionOil and gas industry remains the backbone of the Nigerian economy since it contributes over 90% of its revenues and about 45% of its GDP (Akinlo, 2012;Ekeghe, 2022). Elum et al. (2016) suggested that Nigeria's economic and political fortunes are strongly linked to crude oil. Thus, one can assume that without crude oil, the Nigerian economy might crumble.Presently, crude oil is produced in nine Southern States of Nigeria (Ejechi, 2022) and the federal government and select multinational companies are vested with the power to explore this resource. Thus, the oil-producing states and oil-host communities have little or no say in the crude-oil exploration decision-making process (Elum, 2016). However, this might change with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) which was recently signed into law. Currently, little attention is being paid to the resultant detrimental impacts of such exploration ventures on the oil-producing communities in Nigeria. The environmental degradation of the ecosystem has resulted in widespread poverty and deprivation of resource advantages in the oil host communities (Elum, 2016). This has given rise to resentments of policies of the federal government by the residents, resulting in several cases of civil disturbance in the region (Apata, 2010).Environmental disasters in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria are cau...