FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Port Harcourt, 16th October, 2026
ALETO EXPLOSION: MIIDEEKOR DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY, END TO CORPORATE IMPUNITY AND URGENT SAFETY AUDIT OF OIL AND GAS INFRASTRUCTURE ACROSS THE NIGER DELTA
The Miideekor Environmental Development Initiative (MEDI) expresses deep concern and outrage over the devastating explosion that rocked Aleto community in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State on Thursday, 15 October 2026, reportedly leaving at least 20 people injured and destroying or severely damaging about 50 houses, alongside shops, vehicles and other properties.
This incident is another painful proof that communities across the Niger Delta continue to bear the dangerous consequences of oil and gas infrastructure, often with devastating implications for human lives, livelihoods and environmental safety.
Residents say this pipeline had been leaking for about three weeks. They say the community raised the alarm and that no company representative has been seen on the ground since the fire. If true, this was not an accident. It was a foreseeable disaster that was reported and left unattended.
Aleto is one of the six kingdoms of Ogoniland, where Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Eight gave their lives to demand an end to exactly this kind of impunity. More than three decades later, the people still live beside ageing, leaking, poorly monitored oil and gas infrastructure, and still bear the cost when it fails.
This explosion cannot be separated from a wider failure. Across the Niger Delta, oil companies are exiting under the banner of divestment, leaving behind contaminated land and water, idle wells and abandoned pipelines, with the federal government’s blessing. Liabilities are passed on, responsibility disappears, and the host communities are left to bury the consequences. The 2011 UNEP Assessment told Nigeria what Ogoniland needed. Fifteen years on, the cleanup remains incomplete and new hazards keep appearing.
MEDI therefore demands the following:
1. Immediate relief and care. The operator and the Rivers State and federal governments must cover the medical bills of all the injured and provide emergency shelter and support for displaced families.
2. Transparent investigation. NOSDRA must identify the operator of the pipeline and conduct a Joint Investigation Visit with community representatives and independent civil society observers present. The findings must be published.
3. Full compensation. Every affected household and trader must be compensated for losses, with no delay and no blame-shifting between NNPC Ltd, the Nigeria Gas Company and any contractors.
4. A safety audit of pipelines in Ogoniland. Every gas and oil line crossing Ogoni communities must be independently inspected, and leaks reported by communities must trigger a response within hours, not weeks.
5. Decommissioning and cleanup before exit. The federal government must stop approving divestments that transfer assets without binding commitments to remediate, decommission abandoned and obsolete infrastructure, and fund the cleanup.
6. A proper institution for the cleanup. HYPREP is a project, not an agency. The Niger Delta needs a statutory body with independent oversight and guaranteed funding, and MEDI will continue to push for it.
Ogoni communities are not a sacrifice zone. A government that lets polluters walk away from their liabilities while our people are burnt out of their homes has chosen the side of the polluters.
We call on the media, the National Assembly, civil society and our partners at home and abroad to keep the spotlight on Aleto until justice is done.
Comrade Celestine AkpoBari PhD
Executive Director,
Miideekor Environmental Development Initiative