By Our Reporter
For a family in Bille Kingdom, a trip across the creek is not simply a journey from one point to another.
The waterways are part of everyday life. They connect homes to neighbouring communities, support fishing and farming, and provide a route through which people move and conduct their businesses.
That is why reports of environmental problems in the community are causing concern.
When the water and surrounding environment become threatened, the consequences are felt not in boardrooms, but in homes, farms, fishing boats and family budgets.
And now, as Nigeria’s oil industry enters another major transition, residents of Bille in Degema Local Government Area of Rivers State are faced with a difficult question:
If oil companies leave, who will take responsibility for the environmental problems left behind?
The question is at the heart of the 2026 National Extractives Dialogue, scheduled for September 29 and 30 in Port Harcourt.
The fifth edition of the dialogue is being convened by Spaces for Change (S4C), in partnership with the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), with support from the Ford Foundation.
Its theme is direct: “Remediation Before Divestment and Energy Transition: Amplifying the Bille Environmental Crisis.”
More than 150 stakeholders are expected at the gathering, including government officials, regulators, civil society organisations, host community representatives, academics and private-sector actors.
But for Bille residents, the issue goes beyond another conference or policy discussion.
Bille hosts major oil assets, including Oil Mining Leases OML 18 and OML 24. According to the organisers, reports from affected communities and preliminary field observations indicate persistent environmental concerns, including reported gas leaks affecting waterways, creeks, residential areas and agricultural livelihoods.
The word “reported” remains important.
Technical assessments are still ongoing, and verified scientific investigations are expected to establish the source and extent of the reported problems.
But while investigations continue, people still have to live their daily lives.
They need water.
They need to fish.
They need to farm.
They need to move between communities.
That is why the call for immediate relief measures, including access to clean water, has become an important part of the conversation.
For a riverine community, environmental degradation can quickly become an economic problem.
A damaged waterway can affect a fisherman’s income. An affected farm can threaten a family’s food supply. Uncertainty about the safety of the environment can place additional pressure on households already struggling to survive.
The wider concern is Nigeria’s ongoing oil-sector restructuring.
International Oil Companies are transferring some onshore assets to domestic operators while the country pushes towards an energy transition.
But environmental liabilities do not disappear simply because ownership changes.
The organisers of NED2026 are therefore calling for responsible decommissioning, environmental cleanup, technical source-tracing, inter-agency cooperation and corporate accountability before asset transfers and energy-transition plans move ahead.
The dialogue will also give Bille and neighbouring riverine communities an opportunity to sit directly with regulators, operators, security agencies and civil society organisations.
The press statement announcing the event was signed by Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, Executive Director of Spaces for Change.
For communities that have lived alongside oil production for years, the message is straightforward.
They do not want to be remembered only when oil is being extracted.
They want to be remembered when responsibility is being assigned.
As Nigeria prepares for a new energy future, Bille is asking a question that could affect many other oil-producing communities:
When the oil companies move on, will they leave behind a restored environment—or will the people inherit the environmental bill?
