Time Bombs at RAINOIL and CYBERNETICS TANKFARMS OGHARA

       If the Nigerian Department of Petroleum Resources(DPR)will not grant approval for the establishment of a fuel service station in a strictly residential area,then how did the same DPR throw the book of regulations away and approve the establishment of three petroleum storage tank farms of over 100 million litre capacity in the hitherto sleepy and strictly residential neighbourhood of Oghareki?.
        For those who don't know,a tank farm  is a compound containing a collection of high capacity tanks,into which ocean going vessels discharge their highly inflamable petroleum cargo,usually fuel or premium motor spirit(PMS),Diesel(AGO),or Kerosene.
        Oghareki,a part of Oghara Kingdom,is a settlement by the bank of the River Ethiope,reputed to be at least 100 feet deep making it a suitable waterway for deep sea liners.It is about 10 kilometers from the Idjerhe Kingdom with which she shares the same Local Government Area,Ethiope West Local  Government Area.
        The latter Kingdom  has Jesse as it's chief settlement.Jesse needs no elaborate introduction as the petroleum pipeline inferno which claimed a thousand plus lives on october 18th 1998 is still easilly recalled by all.
       The mind boggling facet of the Oghara tank farms siting is how the authorities;the DPR,the PPMC,the State Governor,the House of Assembly,the Local Government Authorities,the Oghara Monarch and other stake holders could so hastilly push the Jesse fire disaster,and the lesson it was meant to serve out of their minds and aquiesce to the status quo of the petroleum industry.
       The storage capacity of Rainoil Oghara is 50 million litres,and going by that size,should not be anywhere close to any residential area,because if accidentally ignited,will create a conflagration which will surely engulf everything within a fifty kilometer radius at least.
       Immediately,the serene world class Amena Hotels and Resorts sharing a common fence with Rainoil will be wiped out,guests,staff and all.The Union Bank building and everyone therein will burn to soot,the Western Delta University hostel located next to the late Oghara King's palace,inhabitants and all will be consumed,the adjoining Uherevie Primary School,Pupils,Teachers et al,Orefe Secondary School;Students,Teachers and others,the Oghara Police Station;Policemen,cell inmates and the adjoining Rainoil service station will all be vapourized.Even the Ethiope West local Government secretariat,and the United Bank for Africa and their staff,customers and all will be fried.
      Somewhere in between,all the fully laden tankers,and their Drivers,who usually hang around for a while to enable them siphon a few litres,or take a beer or two,or just catch a little sleep before hitting the road,will also catch the inevitable fire as it spreads around the area.
       On the other side of the Oghara Ajagbodudu road,the Cybernetics tank farm  will also be ignited and the 500+ residential housing units and their occupants with it.Of course the Ogharaki Baptist Model college,Sage Global college and the not too far off Catholic Our Lady of Nigeria College will also be razed down,as will be the entire Ajagbodudu Palm Plantation,quarters,residents,goats,chickens etc.The resulting fire will even stretch as far as the Koko road.
       Unavoidably too,the vibration from such explosion will shatter glass windows of houses and vehicles in adjoining areas several kilometres away,and the fire will even burn right across the river into Sapele town, and the Sapele thermal power station at Ogorode,which is just across the river and a stone's throw from Rainoil tank farms will burn like a piece of firewood in the harmattan.
      While this collateral damage and calamity rages,the state fire service will stand by helplessly because they are not fitted to cope with a fire of this dimension,as was also the case with the Jesse fire which was put out over a month later,by a fire fighting company from the United States.As it all plays out, the countless profiteering stakeholders now being befriended by the bankers including the DPR,the PPMC,the Delta State Government,the Petroleum Minister,the Presidency,the Ethiope West Local Government ,the Oghara Monarch and community leaders would have all become like the Sentry  who fell asleep.

TO BE CONTINUED.

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Coal Production In The Niger Delta

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Charcoal Production In The Niger Delta

      The Ubiquitous WHO has told the world that 50 billion hours are spent collecting firewood each year.This firewood is primarily used as solid fuel for cooking and as a source of heating,in the form of plain old firewood,or processed charcoal,gotten locally from cooking wood.
        Local charcoal production common in the poorer parts of the world,is at least 30,000 years old.It is a lucrative but mortally involving business.It is conducted about 35 meters from the newly refurbished Gammon bridge in Okirigwre,an outskirt of Sapele in Delta State of Nigeria.Here poverty runs deep like the very waters of the nearby Ethiope river.
        Charcoal production here begins with burning or cooking the source wood,which is buried under heaps of sand and sooth,both of which components create a low oxygen atmosphere,causing the burning wood to stop just short of it all turning into ash.This process takes two weeks,and it produces black lumpy charcoal together with some powdery ash as by products.The resulting charcoal retains about 25% of the starting weight of the wood that was burnt,and it potentially produces more energy during combustion added to the desirable advantage of smokelessness,quite unlike raw wood or kerosene fires which produce more dangerous emissions and vapours.
        In contrast to the many advantages of using charcoal the very process of producing it is fraught with inumerable hazards,one of which is the unfortunate by production of carcinogens,and a lot of smoke.In the Charcoal producing site in Okirigwre,Sapele,the main workers are women and their children,thereby making them suffer the greatest health risks,with the children having the greatest vulnerability to the countless respiratory illnesses which are wont to arise from such regular exposure to smoke,carcinogens and irritants.This sure will bring to mind the global issue of life expectancy and controlled pollution levels.For the desperately poor people of the stupendously rich Niger Delta,the only thing that drives them is their need to survive in the face of such all consuming shark teeth poverty.End.

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River Ethiope The Deepest

     At the near unfathomable depth of 100feet,the river Ethiope,a freshwater body holds the undisputed record as the deepest river in West Africa.For centuries,this river has flowed out drop after mysterious drop from the bowels of an iroko tree in Umuaja village near Umutu in Delta state of Nigeria where the UNOKU deity is worshipped just by the tree.Certainly a place to be seen to be believed, this jaw dropping source of the river Ethiope.This majestic body of water,though sporadically bedeviled by the spillages caused by saboteurs of petroleum pipelines still retains a considerable part of it's splendour.
       Lying within latitude 5.9000 and longitude 5.7000 degrees in the Africa Lagos timezone,river Ethiope traverses the historical university town of Abraka,the kingdom of Jesse,the timber processing town of Sapele where it is bridged at Okirigwre,the polytechnic town of Oghara,and the ancient administrative port city settlement of Koko.From there,it flows for some distance before joining the Atlantic ocean.
         A handful of world class hotels dot the shores of the Ethiope like the Peemos Place Sapele,Abraka river hotels,and Abraka,Amena Resorts,Oghara.Other industries on the bank of the Ethiope are the African Timber and Plywood factory ATP,Lonestar drilling company,and Rainoil,a major player in the oil and gas industry.Water transportation also thrives in the Ethiope in addition to some fishing and dredging done with locally constructed dredgers .The purpose of such dredging activities is solely to excavate the white sharp sand of the river Ethiope,for sale to the construction industry .

The Dog Of The King

The dog of the king is the king of dogs!.If President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan,his governors and their geometric battery of aides agree,then why are Nigerians,children of such an affluent country so plagued by this pauperising species of poverty?. If you drive by almost any refuse disposal site now,you are sure to find people,not mad one's,attracted there like ants to sugar,scavenging the waste in those places,converting the discarded plastics and scrap to cash.Yet Nigeria is fifty three today. If you drop by any one of Nigeria's public universities now,the gates are shut....the staff have become career strikers,PHCN too or what is left of it is also on strike;the import of this?,no power,meaning the average Nigerian can't even watch today's independence day celebrations on Tv. At 53,Nigeria has lost NITEL,lost Nigeria Airways,struggling not to loose Nigerian Railway Cooperation,lost Delta Steel Company,lost Ajaokuta Steel Company,lost PHCN,lost the confidence of Nigerians,lost the trust of foreigners etc etc. Beside the moribund NITEL premises on Reclamation street,Sapele,there's a rash of small businesses;a car wash,a mechanic workshop,a private school,a barbing saloon,a church,and a couple of others more.All of the aforementioned businesses are thriving in a structure that belongs to NIPOST,a fully completed structure that would have been useful today as a post office.My bet is that people who patronise the businesses in that completed but abandoned ultra modern NIPOST building don't even know that place was originally built as a post office. At fifty three,quite sadly,the majority of Nigerians are disappointed,dismayed and disoriented by goings on in a country which is held in a vice-grip by corruption,tribalism and inefficiency.The only thing Nigerians still posess now is hope,but even that fizzles away if it doesn't transform into reality in good time.So help us God!.End.

Bulgarian Independence Day Today 22/09/2013

As Bulgaria turns 105years today,the entire country is agog with the much expected celebrations.Congrats Bulgarians!!!!!.More at novinite.com