SPECIAL REPORT: Oil spills from abandoned wells ravage Ogoniland amidst plans to resume production

On 3 August 2025, residents of the Kpean community in the Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State woke up to an invisible warning.

A sharp, suffocating hydrocarbon smell crept through the air, forcing people out of their homes and toward an oil facility that looms ominously over their lives and livelihoods.

Before they reached the site, the land and water had already delivered the message: crude oil was spilling again.

Darkened soil, slick streams and wilting vegetation announced the incident before any official confirmation.

At the centre of the incident was Well 14, drilled around 1967 in the Yorla Oil Field of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 11.

The abandoned, dilapidated oil well has remained in place for decades after production ceased. From its corroded wellhead, crude oil was seeping freely into nearby land and water bodies, contaminating farms, poisoning streams and destroying vegetation.

For Kpean, a community in Ogoniland, this was a reminder of what they often faced when oil production was on in their domain.

Three days too late

The community immediately alerted the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), the federal agency mandated to detect, respond to, and coordinate the cleanup of oil spills in Nigeria. But the official response lagged behind the spreading pollution.

According to an analysis of NOSDRA documents from the agency’s Oil Spill Monitor portal, the spill was stopped three days later, on 6 August 2025, and the agency conducted a Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) on 8 August 2025, five days after the spill began.

The JIV was led by NOSDRA and attended by representatives of the Rivers State Ministry of Environment, NNPC Exploration and Production Limited (NEPL), which is the operator of the asset, the host community, and security agencies, including the military Joint Task Force and the police.

The JIV report estimated that about 28 barrels of crude oil, roughly 4,450 litres, were spilt from the wellhead, with 14 barrels reportedly recovered. The report attributed the cause of the spill to corrosion, noting that vegetation was the primary property impacted, with oil-stained and withering plants recorded. The affected area, the report stated, lay “within the company’s facility.”

NOSDRA issued two key recommendations: that NEPL OML 11 should immediately repair the wellhead, and that the impacted spill site should be cleaned up under NOSDRA’s monitoring.

On paper, the response appeared promising. On the ground, residents say it was ineffective.

From neglect to flames

Community members told PREMIUM TIMES that the recommendations were not promptly implemented. They reported that the oil continued to seep into the environment, unchecked. Twelve days later, on 15 August 2025, the neglected spill escalated into a fire outbreak at the site. Although the fire was eventually contained, it deepened fears that official inaction had transformed an environmental incident into a safety disaster.

The incident might have ended there. Instead, it became a prelude.

On 4 December 2025, five months after the first spill, oil was once again seen spreading across the environment. According to residents, containment efforts did not begin until 25 December 2025, 21 days after the spill. As of 26 January, more than seven weeks later, clean-up had yet to commence.

Livelihoods erased, lives endangered

For the people of Kpean, the spills have rewritten daily existence. SorlebaBari Appolos, a community member, said survival has become a struggle.

“Since this spill started, we can no longer farm or fish,” he said. “Before now, we relied on our stream for drinking water and cooking. But now oil is flowing into our water. We no longer fetch from it. We buy sachet water to survive.”

Beyond livelihoods, Mr Appolos spoke of a more profound crisis, one measured in sickness and death.

“During this spill, there has been a strange sickness in the community, leading to deaths. Yesterday, we buried two people, and today, we will bury them again.”

He added that longevity has become rare in the community due to the legacy of oil pollution. “People hardly live beyond 60 years. Even young people die from complicated health issues.”

Any intervention, he appealed, must prioritise healthcare. “If the federal government, through NEPL, remembers that we are humans, they should consider us.”

Promises without action

The Paramount Ruler of Kpean, Lucky Gbene-Ewoh, questioned why it has taken over five months without a meaningful cleanup.

“Repeated petitions have only come with promises without action. Meanwhile, the strange deaths of humans and animals continue. Our people’s livelihoods are destroyed. No one can farm or fish again,” he said.

The spill in Khana, however, is only one thread in the wider intricacies of pollution across Ogoniland.

Cycle of spills

Three months before the August 2025 spill in Kpean, oil leaked on 6 May 2025, in the B-Dere community in Gokana Local Government Area, flowing from the Bodo-West 1 oil well.

In a Reuters report, civil society groups and community representatives confirmed that the spill originated from a ruptured section of the Trans Niger Pipeline, raising concerns about a delayed response and inadequate containment.

There were oil spills at every axis across Ogoniland’s four local government areas of Gokana, Khana, Eleme and Tai in 2025. In April, oil spilt in Korokoro, Tai Local Government Area, from a wellhead close to a HYPREP remediation site. In February, another spill occurred in Ogale, Eleme Local Government Area.

These incidents occurred in the same year that the federal government publicly revived discussions of resuming oil operations in Ogoniland.

Legacy of pollution and resistance

Oil production began in Ogoniland in the 1960s, ushering in decades of spills, gas flaring and environmental degradation. By 1993, community resistance led by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) under environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa forced a halt to production.

The struggle culminated in the execution of Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists on 10 November 1995, by the military regime of Sani Abacha, drawing global condemnation and entrenching the suspension of oil operations.

Yet while production stopped, infrastructure did not disappear. Wells, pipelines, and flow stations were largely abandoned rather than properly decommissioned, leaving Ogoniland exposed to recurring pollution from ageing, unsafe facilities.

Today, the federal government’s plans to resume oil production face stiff resistance from communities and civil society organisations, spawning campaigns such as Ogonize, spearheaded by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF).

What the law requires, and what happens instead

The NOSDRA Act of 2006 outlines clear responsibilities in the event of an oil spill. Section 6(3) stipulates that failure to clean up an impacted site attracts a fine of N1 million. Section 19 empowers the agency to advise governments on health impacts, ensure remediation, monitor emergency responses and supervise cleanup until full rehabilitation is achieved.

When contacted, the Zonal Director of NOSDRA’s Port Harcourt office, Augustine Bello, said the agency was “carrying out its responsibility responsibly.”

He declined to offer further comment on the matter when our reporter asked why there was no cleanup.

Cleanup had still not begun in Kpean when our reporter visited the area in late January.

Conflicting narratives

In a response to a PREMIUM TIMES inquiry, Andy Odeh, the NNPC’s chief corporate communications officer, claimed on 3 February that remediation and recovery operations were ongoing, even if not immediately visible.

He cited a 22 December 2025 field visit by the national security adviser, the minister of environment and the Group CEO of NNPC Ltd as an independent validation that the spill had been stopped and restoration was underway.

“While community members may not immediately observe visible clean-up progress, structured remediation is ongoing under regulatory supervision,” Mr Odey stated.

However, the NNPC’s position on the oil spill is contradicted by NOSDRA’s JIV findings.

While the JIV report cited corrosion as the cause of the spill, NNPC insisted that the wellhead had been vandalised.

“It is important to emphasise that the Yorla-14 well, which has been dormant for over three decades, was deliberately sabotaged. This act of vandalism, rather than corrosion or operational neglect, was the direct cause of the incident,” Mr Odey stated.

Decommissioning promises

Sections 232 and 233 of the Petroleum Industry Act and the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Decommissioning and Abandonment Regulations 2023 provide for the decommissioning of oil facilities that have exceeded their safe operating lives.

In response to PREMIUM TIMES’ request about the company’s plans to address legacy risks for the Yorla-14 well and other oil installations within the OML11 asset, the NNPC said it had launched a physical asset verification exercise to identify and secure dormant infrastructure, and promised to decommission unsafe facilities.

Civil society demands justice

HOMEF and the Miideekor Environmental Development Initiative have called for transparent investigations, immediate cleanup, compensation for affected farmers and fisherfolk, accelerated decommissioning of ageing infrastructure, and independent monitoring with community participation.

HOMEF’s Executive Director, Nnimmo Bassey, said proposals to resume oil drilling in Ogoniland collapse under moral and practical scrutiny.

“Oil spills in Ogoniland are not historical footnotes; they are ongoing events,” he said. “Reopening oil drilling under these conditions represents a dangerous misplacement of priority, choosing extraction over restoration and wellbeing.”

Mr Bassey warned that a government unable to control existing pollution cannot credibly manage new extraction.