Santa Barbara:Another oil spill rocks Aiteo's delivery line in Nembe

By Famous Obebi Famous 

Barely few weeks to the painful commemoration of the November 1, 2021 massive oil blow out at Aiteo's  Santa Barbara well 1 in OML 29 in Nembe, Bayelsa State which lasted over a month before it was stopped, yet another oil spill has occurred close to the site of the previous spill, raising serious concerns over the safety of lives and properties of community folks who are still reeling from the shock of the huge spill of 2021 and several spills in between.

This was contained in a letter by the legal counsel to the Opu Nembe Kingdom signed by  Iniruo Wills, Managing Partner and Dr Dickson Omukoro of Ntephe Smith and Wills, and addressed to the HSE Manager, Nembe Eastern Exploration and Production Company Ltd (the new name of Aiteo), Augustine Amaka Bisong.

According to the letter,  a copy of which was seen by journalists in Yenagoa, the oil leak which occurred at Aiteo's 8-inch delivery line at Tora close to Santa Barbara was said to have occurred on the 1st of October 2025 but  Aiteo's management chose to inform the Nembe community on October 5th, four days after the spill via a letter Ref: NEPCo/HSE-JIV/2025/04 it sent to the Opu Nembe Kingdom, through the Opu Nembe Peace Steering Committee, asking for a Joint Investigation Visit to be carried out the following day being October 6th. 

Angered by Aiteo's show of disrespect to its host community, the community through their legal counsel wrote to the oil operator to reschedule the JIV for a more suitable date of October 9, 2025

The letter reads in part, "We are instructed by our clients to remind you - as you are quite aware of already - that the Community requires and deserves decent notice to assemble a competent JIV team, some of whom usually come from Lagos, Port Harcourt and/or Yenagoa, in order to ensure due diligence and avoid or countervail the perennial practice of manipulating the JIV process and suppressing critical information."

The Opu Nembe Kingdom through its legal representative, therefore, called for a critical assessment of the damage caused by the recent spill as well as measures to be taken to mitigate its impact on the health and economic and social well being of community members and to remediate the environment.

"Please note that our clients demand a thorough and competent investigation of this spill, and an adequate management (including swift post-spill assessment and remediation).

Beyond this spill, for the records, we demand on behalf of our clients again for a top-level engagement (Company, Community Technical Team, and Regulators) for a lasting overall framework to put a stop to this unbearable and continual burden."

Aiteo has been in operation in Nembe, Bayelsa State for about 10 years now after it acquired one of the prime onshore assets of Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd, OML 29, in 2015.

Since then several spills have occurred in the area, crippling the socio-economic lives of the largely fishing settlements in the Nembe area.

Perhaps in a strategic move to burnish its corporate image and curry favour from its host Nembe communities, Aiteo recently changed its name to Nembe Exploration and Production Company Ltd.

In a related development, the Opu Nembe Kingdom is currently in court with Aiteo to seek environmental justice in respect of three oil spills that occurred in 2019 and 2020. 

Counsel in the case, before the Federal High Court in Yenagoa (with suit No FHC/YNG/CS/284/2024), allege that there have been needless delays in the prosecution of the matter, prompting apprehension that the matter may be dragging as part of a bid to evade justice. 

In a strongly worded letter dated October 7, 2025 addressed to  Abdul Mohammed (SAN) and Kayode Olaosebikan of Madyan Legal Consult, counsel to Aiteo, titled Displeasure at Needless Delays, Mr Iniruo Wills and Dr Dickson Omukoro of Ntephe Smith and Wills, counsel to the plaintiffs, expressed dissatisfaction on Aiteo's request for adjournment of the case which came up on September 30, 2025.

The letter reads,"We however express the deep displeasure of our client communities (who have been suffering the burden of your client’s oil spills, including depending on oil-polluted waters for daily needs) at what appears to be a needless protracted delay in conducting this lawsuit, especially in light of the grounds for your last said request for adjournment: appearance of “Learned Senior counsel” in another suit in Abuja and attendance of the New Legal Year at the Supreme Court/swearing in of new Senior Advocates of Nigeria"

It asserted that Aiteo’s attitude could be interpreted as unnecessarily delaying the wheels of environmental justice for Opu Nembe Kingdom whose lives and livelihood have been impoverished over the past five years since the three spills occurred.

"After five years of Aiteo running rings round the regulatory agencies/process to evade liability, our law-abiding clients had to resort to the courts. Another rigmarole to delay this resort to court could cast an impression of a defendant litigant’s cavalier attitude to the judicial process, despite the army of large and powerful law firms at its disposal."

They called for the cooperation of Aiteo's counsels, "in progressing the case towards a timely determination or resolution, in the interest of the rule of law that we all avow"

Environment law experts have continued to canvass the imperative for setting up specialized Environmental courts for speedy dispensation of environmental matters which often drag on partly because Bayelsa State at the moment has only one Federal High Court Division and the Federal High Court  is the court of first instance in petroleum pollution matters.

It will be recalled that the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission report findings of 2023 indicate that 25 percent of the oil spills occurring in the Niger Delta take place in Bayelsa State, with Joint Investigation Visits often suffering substantially from regulatory deficiencies.