INVESTIGATION: Gas flares, poisoned lives, regulatory failures in Nigeria’s oil fields

INVESTIGATION: Gas flares, poisoned lives, regulatory failures in Nigeria’s oil fields

The community sits between the Atlantic Ocean and the Qua Iboe River. For generations, the water sustained almost everyone here.

That memory is still fresh for Monday George. As a young fisherman in the early 2000s, he targeted octopus. The shallow coastal waters were rich, and the market was good.

“There was plenty,” he recalled. “We caught octopus regularly, and we had different types of fish. Back then, if you worked hard, fishing could take care of your family, and you could consider yourself rich.”

The work paid enough for him to marry early and support his growing household. Around 2010, he said, he contributed N40,000 every week to a local thrift scheme.

“At that time, that was serious money.” Today, he laughs when reminded of it. The laughter is not because it is funny, but because it sounds like another lifetime.

According to him, things started changing around 2012. Fish catches declined. Water temperatures seemed higher. Species that had been common for decades gradually became difficult to find.

“We started noticing that the water was no longer as cold as before. The octopus reduced first. Then other fish started disappearing,” he said.

Many fishermen now return with little or nothing. “It is only bonga that we catch easily now. The bigger fish have moved farther away,” Mr George said.

Reaching those fishing grounds requires more fuel, larger boats, and greater risk.

Many, including Mr George, cannot afford it. Now, he no longer contributes to any thrift scheme.

He said his concern now is feeding his four children. “There are days I go out and come back with nothing.”

What is unfolding in Akata is, at its heart, a methane story. The warming waters, the failing catches and the eroding shoreline are the local face of a climate crisis that methane is helping to accelerate. The gas is escaping from oil and gas operations that surround these communities.

“For communities living near oil and gas facilities, methane is not an abstract climate issue,” said Country Manager for Nigeria at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Tengi George-Ikoli. “It is connected to the air they breathe, the health risks they face, the quality of their farmland and fishing waters, and their everyday experience of living alongside extraction activities.”

For some fishermen, the collapse of catches in shallow waters has forced a move into deeper parts of the Atlantic. That decision cost one family dearly.

Papa Sam still struggles when speaking about his older brother, Udeme. For years, both men fished in coastal waters until Udeme decided to try deeper offshore grounds. “He said he was tired since the fish near us were no longer enough,” Papa Sam recalled.

Around November 2024, Udeme began venturing farther out to sea; his catches improved almost immediately, and his family started rebuilding financially.

Then, in March 2025, he died while fishing offshore. “He wanted to survive,” his brother said, his voice low and suddenly strained as he fought back tears.

“Now I am taking care of his six children.”

In Akata, the environmental changes are visible beyond the unproductive water for these community members, who are predominantly fishers.

Near the shoreline stands a ruined structure destroyed by the sea tides. Residents identified it as the former health centre.

A damaged water-tank stand still rises above the rubble, and community members say both structures once stood safely inside the village. Now the Atlantic surrounds them.

Gloria Thomas, a princess of the community, walked PREMIUM TIMES through the area.

She pointed towards open water. “People lived there. Hundreds of houses were there,” she said.

The ocean has since claimed them, and according to residents, severe coastal erosion and rising sea levels accelerated around 2013.

The destruction has had consequences beyond housing, as the community lost its only health centre and a private school.

Today, many children in the community are out of school because their parents cannot afford a daily one-hour boat ride to and from school.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Akwa Ibom State has a high prevalence of out-of-school children.

In Akata, a medical emergency begins with a 30-minute boat trip as residents must first travel by water before continuing by road to access healthcare.

“We have lost many lives, especially pregnant women,” Ms Thomas said.

The encroaching ocean, driven by climate change, has also split what was once a single community into two sections, now known locally as Akata I and Akata II.

Land has become scarce, leading to increasing disputes, while many families unable to cope have left the community.

“There is hardly anywhere to farm now. Some people had no option except to relocate,” she said.

Akata lies within waters that host major oil and gas assets. Among them are OMLs 67, 68, 70, and 104, which were recently acquired by Seplat Energy from Mobil Producing Nigeria. Oil production in the area dates back to 1970.

For decades, gas has been flared during petroleum operations.

Flaring is the most visible sign of how that gas is handled, but it is not the only way. When associated gas is flared efficiently, most of its methane burns off, converting to carbon dioxide. When flares burn poorly, or when gas is vented or leaks before it ever reaches the stack, raw methane escapes directly into the atmosphere unburned.

When PREMIUM TIMES visited the area, flare stacks were visible from several locations within the shallow waters.

Across the Akata community, at the Qua Iboe Terminal in Mkpanak, thick, dark smoke rose from a flare. The plume remained visible from kilometres away.

In Mkpanak, residents told PREMIUM TIMES that they can no longer drink rainwater because it is usually contaminated with soot.

Residents said that nose soot, eye irritation, chest discomfort, and breathing difficulties have become common complaints.

Several community members said they frequently experience itchy eyes, persistent coughs and episodes of breathlessness, particularly during periods when emissions and flaring activities appear more intense.

“I use cotton wool to clean my nose from time to time. Yet, the soot I bring out is terrible. Others experience the same. As a result of the flare, chest pains are common here,” Aniebiet Nathaniel, whose shop is across the QIT, said.

PREMIUM TIMES recently reported how gas flaring has turned some Akwa Ibom oil communities into furnaces.

To better understand these claims, PREMIUM TIMES visited the primary healthcare facility serving the Mkpanak community.