The controversy over the reported deaths at Okari Jetty in Okrika Local Government Area of Rivers State has deepened, with two civil society organisations giving diametrically opposed accounts of what allegedly happened.
While the Youth and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) insists that at least 37 people died after inhaling poisonous fumes from petroleum products, the LightHope Succour Worldwide Initiative (LSWI) said its checks with security authorities indicate that no such incident occurred.
The conflicting claims have now forced the Rivers State Government to intervene, with the Ministry of Health dispatching a team to the community to establish the facts.
The State Police Command has also announced plans to investigate the allegation, although it said no formal complaint had been received concerning the reported deaths.
YEAC-Nigeria said its network of youth volunteers and human rights defenders in Okrika alerted the organisation to the incident.
Its executive director, Dr Fyneface Dumnamene, said 37 suspected oil thieves were reported to have died after inhaling what is locally known as “Indorama Fuel.”
According to him, the incident occurred around midnight on Thursday, September 3, at Okari Jetty, where petroleum products were allegedly being illegally loaded into waiting boats.
Dumnamene alleged that the victims had connected a pipe to an illegal tapping point on a pipeline transporting products from the Indorama Eleme Petrochemical facility through the Port Harcourt Refinery to vessels loading for export.
He said the men were caught in poisonous fumes while simultaneously loading the product into their boats as a vessel loaded nearby.
“This led to the death of not fewer than 37 persons. Many are still missing, and some corpses have been seen floating on the river but have not yet been recovered,” he said.
The account was further supported by the Commander of the Civilian JTF in Okrika, Igwe Godswill, who described the incident as tragic and said about 10 bodies had been recovered.
Godswill said some of the remains were badly damaged, making identification difficult.
“We saw about 10 of them. Four were still unrecognisable, while four persons were identified. The rest could not be identified because their bodies were badly damaged and their faces were severely affected,” he said.
He said most of the victims were young people driven into dangerous activities by the search for livelihoods, warning that simply stopping illegal activities without providing alternative sources of income would not solve the problem.
But LSWI has challenged the entire account.
In a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Friday and signed by its media lead, Evelyn Williams, the organisation said it contacted senior authorities of the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Army responsible for the area.
It said all three security authorities confirmed that no such incident occurred at Okari Jetty on September 3.
“Consequently, our preliminary investigation has been unable to establish the veracity of the reported 37 fatalities,” LSWI said, describing the report as “fake news and without credible factual basis.”
The organisation demanded verifiable evidence from those behind the report and urged media organisations to subject claims involving mass casualties to rigorous editorial verification before publication.
LSWI, however, stressed that its position should not be interpreted as denying the existence of oil theft, pipeline vandalism and other dangerous activities in the Niger Delta.
The conflicting accounts have now placed the burden squarely on the Rivers State Government and security agencies to establish what happened at Okari Jetty.
The State Ministry of Health said it was unaware of the incident until the reports emerged.
Its spokesperson, Edna Alete, told LEADERSHIP that the permanent secretary had constituted a team to visit the scene and conduct an assessment.
“We are not aware of the incident before now. But, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health has set up a team who are heading to the scene to see things for themselves,” she said.