EARTH CHANGES

Pollution: ex-commisioner warns of looming disaster

Former Commissioner in Nigeria's defunct Bendel State, Dr. Idodo Umeh said that 'government must come out to tell the oil companies that they must obey the rules of the environment. Do you know that these oil companies obey the rules in their countries but they abuse environment here? The environment does not need you to live but you need the environment to live', he said.
Dr. Umeh, says that a major health disaster looms in the Niger Delta if something urgent is not done by government about the pollution of the environment by the oil companies operating in the region.
Dr. Umeh said "the results of my study is not friendly, the environment is contaminated, it is abused, the water is not fit for human consumption. All the fishes in the rivers are contaminated with heavy metals such as iron, zinc, lead, cobalt and so on and this is contrary to the standard of the World Health Organization (WHO)."
He said that those metals were toxic to human beings and "when you drink water containing them, they would accumulate in your body they can cause cancer, high-blood pressure, heart disease, heart failure, heart damage, liver damage, kidney damage because they accumulate and do not leave your body. There is saline disease now in the Niger Delta and this is the result of polluted water. It reduces the life span of the people and of course, even the crude oil is very toxic. It should not be allowed in our drinking water, it is very poisonous."