Environmental impacts of oil production activities in Niger Delta, Nigeria

The exploration and production of oil is a significant global industrial development. In Nigeria, oil production has attracted several benefits both positive and negative. The negative aspect of the oil producing companies has manifested in environmental degradation; while positive impacts have influenced several infrastructure developments. In the sampling process, Niger Delta was stratified into Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa States. While the selected states were further stratified into Local Government Areas where oil production activities were dominant. Ebubu-Eleme and Ogbagi (Rivers State); Olomoro and Oghara 1 (Delta State); and Bisemi and Iminringi (Bayelsa State) communities were purposely selected. Thereafter, 1659, 1512 and 1332 buildings were respectively identified in Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa States LGAs. Through systematic sampling, one out of all 10th (K=10) buildings were selected. Thus, 453 questionnaires were administered on the household heads or its equivalent in the study area. Moreover, Average Weighted Mean through the adoption of Likert scale was used to compute Mean Index (Relative Agreement Index) for each variable identified. The study established that some notable impacts; business opportunity (4.21), connections (4.05), job and exposure (3.91), sanitation issues (3.90), youth restiveness (3.79) and environmental pollution (3.77), among others. These findings align with existing studies on the positive and negative impacts of oil production activities in the region. It was recommended that the government should be more accountable to the affected communities in terms of sustainable developments. Also, the basic social responsibility of the oil companies should be enforced by the appropriate government agencies with transparency.