Minister commends NOSDRA’s effort in addressing oil spillage

Oritsegbubemi Omatseyin

Lagos — The Minister of Environment, Alhaji Balarabe Abbas Lawal, has commended the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, for its relentless commitment and efforts to address oil spillage and related matters in Nigeria head-on.

He made this commendation during a working visit to NOSDRA. The minister said he was impressed by the level and pace of institutional and capacity drives he witnessed in the agency regardless of the odds.

While calling for teamwork, as well as internal training of subordinate staff by their supervisors through mentorship, Lawal also stressed the need for closer collaboration between the agency and relevant ministries, agencies and departments, MDAs, of government in order not merely to obviate the challenge of institutional rivalry and conflict but to smoothen the efforts to actualise its statutory mandate.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Director-General/ Chief Executive of NOSDRA, Idris O. Musa, expressed his gratitude and appreciation to the Minister of Environment for his keen interest and support geared towards ensuring the viability of the agency.

He emphasised that the agency had prioritised teamwork and staff capacity training, besides cooperation and collaboration with relevant MDAs and other stakeholders, as an indispensable key to ensuring that it was up and doing in maintaining its mandate.

He highlighted the strides of NOSDRA in oil spill management and allied matters across the country, explaining that this had led to the establishment of additional zonal offices and more in the foreseeable future.

Musa also mentioned part of the strides of the agency as formulation of the state-of-the-art and technology-driven Nigerian Oil Spill Monitor and National Gas Flare Tracker for ease of forestalling petroleum-related pollution in the country.

He noted that as a means of fighting air pollution and bolstering the national economy in Nigeria, NOSDRA had maintained the official stance in different meetings that pollutant gas flares in the country could be checked not only through financial penalisation of defaulting companies but also commercialisation of such flares for use as automobile fuel and cooking gas rather than being wasted.

In the course of the familiarisation/working visit, the Musa and the Management took the minister and his team around the different departments, divisions, and units in the agency.