Soot in Port Harcourt: The Time Is Now

A current campaign to save the lives of Port Harcourt Residents. Residents of Port Harcourt and Nigerians across the country are sharing details on their life expectancy in order to raise more awareness for the health, economic and environmental crisis that is the soot pollution in Rivers State’s capital.

Due to the plethora of soot-related illnesses like Cancers, respiratory, Renal, skin, reproductive, and other life-threatening conditions, thousands of Port Harcourt residents are coming together through the launch of the crowdsourced website www.SootCity.com to compel all tiers of Governments to action in Rivers State.

Sandra Hart, a resident of Port Harcourt, who has escaped death for over 10 years having suffered acute respiratory conditions said, “I am impressed with the coordination that has gone into raising awareness of soot in Port Harcourt over the last few years. I have been in and out of the hospital constantly and even survived a coma, I want Nigerians and particularly residents of Port Harcourt to understand why we need to make sure our Governments puts an end to illegal refining of oil once and for all.”

According to Dr Bieye Renner Briggs, a medical practitioner at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, in Port Harcourt, “most people living in the affected communities know that soot is bad, but just how worse things can get is what is unknown to them. Nigerian in Port Harcourt, are daily being diagnosed with and dying from soot-related illnesses like deformation at birth, cancerous growths, miscarriages, and irritations of the eye, nose, throat, and skin.”

Eugene Abels the Founder of The Extra Step Initiative, says that: “After 60years of Rivers State being the hub of the hydrocarbon industry and with the damaging activities of the non-state actors,the Rivers State Government with external support MUST lead the charge to AUDIT the damage to our flora and fauna particularly the respiratory health of the residents of Port Harcourt and other host communities from the activities of legal and illegal refining of crude oil so as to curb the rate of cancers and renal failure amongst children, indigent people and pregnant women. It is also our belief that even the United Nations Ogoni Clean Up report is obsolete and should be updated by the Federal Government to reflect the current realities which a 10-year-old report does no capture.”

“We need to be very clear on the true impact of the damage soot causes and how the crisis is slowly killing residents, in a way that is candid and easy to comprehend by all, that’s why SootCity is very jarring,” Steve Babaeko, the Founder and CEO of X3M Ideas added.

A couple of multilateral organizations like the United Nations, World Health Organization and the German Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt) have compelled research across countries and continents, these data harvested from years of research birthed www.SootCity.com developed by Steve Babaeko, the Founder and CEO of X3M company. The website www.sootcity,.com accurately determines the life expectancy of each user and with their consent makes the findings public so as to raise awareness and jolt the Government(s) and the people into action.

The website www.Sootcity.com makes letters to be written to all Senators from Rivers State and aims to proffer solutions to this grave issue. Some of these solutions include the collaboration of government at all levels with all stakeholders on clear and strategic activities like the identification and containment of pollution sites; ensuring that IOCs conduct their businesses in line with international best practices; and restructuring and empowerment of environmental and security agencies with the finance and equipment to implement and enforce environmental laws amongst others.

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