Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) Director, Nnimmo Bassey, yesterday accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) of enabling decades of ecological destruction in Niger Delta through regulatory negligence and failure to hold oil companies accountable.
He made the accusation at the 2026 Correspondents’ Week organised by the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Rivers State Council.
The environmentalist described Niger Delta as a region sacrificed for oil profits while government regulators allegedly looked away from widespread environmental crimes.
According to him, Nigeria’s oil industry was built on colonial foundations that prioritised extraction and profit above human lives and environmental protection.
The activist said: “Almost 70 years of crude oil and gas exploitation has left an expanding legacy of oil pollution with an equivalent of one Exxon Valdez oil spill, or 260,000 barrels of crude oil, spilled every year in the region.
