By Nathan Nwakamma
An Environmentalist, Mr Iniruo Wills, has urged the National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), to probe the cause of death of fishes along the Niger Delta coastline.
Wills in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yenagoa on Thursday, noted that dead fishes littered the coastline across Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states.
Wills, who was a former Commissioner for Environment in Bayelsa, expressed concern over the continued death of fishes in the Nigeria territorial waters in the past one month.
He said that this could be indicative of a severe pollution from oil exploration in the area.
The environmentalist, therefore, called on NOSDRA to swing into action and trace the source of the cause of the deaths to safeguard public health.
Wills also urged the agency to live up to its responsibility and ensure that health, safety and environmental standards were not compromised by operators.
He stressed that the agency should not wait for outbreak of epidemic in the coastline before taking action.
“They need to move immediately to avert the looming disaster from the Atlantic coast of the Niger Delta,” Wills said. (NAN)
Credit: NAN