By David Owei,Bayelsa<\/p>\n
A civil society organisation in Rivers State on the aegis of LightHope Succor Worldwide Initiative has challenged reports alleging that 37 persons died after inhaling suspected toxic fumes at Okari Jetty in Okrika Mainland, Rivers State, describing the claim as unverified and urging media organisations to disregard it until credible evidence emerged.<\/p>\n
The organisation, in a statement issued on Friday, said its preliminary enquiries failed to establish the occurrence of the alleged mass-casualty incident, which reportedly happened at the jetty on September 3, 2026.<\/p>\n
According to LightHope, it sought clarification from senior authorities of the Nigeria Police Force, Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Army responsible for the area, and was informed that no such incident was recorded at Okari Jetty on the date in question.<\/p>\n
The statement was apparently in response to a report making the rounds in some print and electronic media, claiming that not fewer than 37 suspected oil thieves had died after inhaling toxic substance in the course of stealing petroleum products from a pipeline taping point at the jetty.<\/p>\n
One of the reports had alleged that the incident occurred at about midnight on Thursday, September 3, during an illegal operation to load petroleum products from a pipeline tapping point into waiting boats.<\/p>\n
The organisation claimed that the youths inhaled the product while it was being pumped at high pressure, resulting in the deaths of at least 37 persons, while several others were allegedly still missing.<\/p>\n
It also claimed that some corpses had been seen floating on the river but had yet to be recovered and called on the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) to conduct a Joint Investigation Visit to the alleged site.<\/p>\n
It urged companies whose facilities were allegedly vandalised to strengthen security around their pipelines.
\nBut LightHope said its preliminary investigation had been unable to independently establish the veracity of the reported fatalities.<\/p>\n
It therefore called on the originators of the report to produce verifiable evidence capable of substantiating the claim, while urging media organisations to apply appropriate editorial checks before reproducing allegations involving the loss of human lives.<\/p>\n
The group, however, cautioned that its position should not be interpreted as a denial of the serious environmental and security challenges associated with oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta.<\/p>\n
Rather, it said, the issue was about accuracy, responsible advocacy and evidence-based reporting.<\/p>\n
LightHope maintained that unverified reports of mass deaths could create unnecessary public anxiety and undermine credible efforts to address the region’s longstanding environmental and security challenges.<\/p>\n
“The conflicting accounts have raised questions that could only be conclusively resolved through an independent investigation by relevant authorities”, it stated, insisting that the reported 37 deaths should not be presented as established fact without credible evidence.<\/p>\n
The organisation reaffirmed its commitment to community welfare, environmental responsibility, public safety and credible advocacy in the Niger Delta.<\/p>\n
However, security agencies in the state including the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps NSCDC have in separate reactions confirmed that some oil thieves actually lost their lives at a pipeline taping point at the Okrika Jetty where they had gone to “steal crude oil”.<\/p>\n
According to Agabe Blessing, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the Rivers Police command, though the command was yet to receive any official complaint on the incident as at Friday afternoon, investigation was on to ascertain the number of suspects who died in the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By David Owei,Bayelsa A civil society organisation in Rivers State on the aegis of LightHope Succor Worldwide Initiative has challenged reports alleging that 37 persons died after inhaling suspected toxic fumes at Okari Jetty in Okrika Mainland, Rivers State, describing the claim as unverified and urging media organisations to disregard it until credible evidence emerged. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oil-gas","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17423,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17421\/revisions\/17423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}