Worldwide, oil spillage has been identified as a major problem plaguing the world, which has had devastating effect on people and their environment. It is said to be harmful, both to plant life as well as other living organism, and has eaten deep into many national budgets as countries expend scarce resources to contain it.

Such funds used in managing oil spills were usually funds that should have been used for developmental purposes and the provision of amenities for citizens of the countries concerned. Painfully to many Nigerians, such is the case in Nigeria, and the funds had been expended because oil companies operating in the country have not done much to stop spillages.

It is perhaps as a result of this that Bukola Saraki, a serving Senator and former governor of Kwara State, recently put his weight behind for the bill, which was being enacted for the protection of oil producing communities in Nigeria. Saraki, who is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, said the bill was meant to regulate the behaviour of oil producing companies in other to prevent them from polluting the environment of oil producing communities.

Not unexpectedly however, the bill has been facing opposition from oil companies who claimed it was intended to inconvenience and punish them, to which Saraki instantly reacted by saying that the intention of bill was in no way punitive.

He made the statement while fielding questions with newsmen in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. He stated that the bill was only intended to discourage oil companies from acts leading to oil spillages.

Saraki also stated that oil spillage in the world occur mostly in Niger Delta, and insisted that oil companies operating there had been lackadaisical on the issue of oil spillages – something they had not been doing in other countries where they pay similar bills as they do in Nigeria, without polluting the environment.

His words: "I don't think there is anywhere in the world where we have the greatest abuse of the environment like in the Niger Delta, yet all the companies operating there also operate in other countries of the world and they know the standard usually prescribed for them. If this were not so we would understand their arguments. So why should we have a different rules for them?

"All we are asking for is that if you can respect the life of others in another country, why not in Nigeria?" He queried.

Saraki made it clear that the law is meant to reduce the level of environmental pollution that is caused by oil companies through oil spillage, and also expressed the determination of his committee and the Senate in implementing and executing the law to the letter. He noted that there has been absence of law regulating oil spillage in Nigeria, as is the case with many serious country's of the world like the United States of America (USA).

Comparing the situation in the USA to that of Nigeria, he said: "if you go to USA whether a spillage is through sabotage or not, once it happens there is a way of calculating what you will pay. That type of law makes you to do everything necessary to secure your pipes."

The bill therefore, according to him, was also intended to compensate oil producing communities and individuals who unfortunately become victims of oil spillage.

Chijioke Odom, a Lagos based lawyer and human rights activist was passionately in support of the newly proposed bill, saying it was a very rational and thoughtful decision Nigeria could ever make. He demonstrated his disappointment at the late coming of this law but still commended its arrival. His words "even though it has come very late, it is a rational action we have ever taken in this nation to put a stop to oil pollution. For the past six decades of petroleum exploration and exploitation, there have been damages done to our ecological system". Just like Saraki, Odom went on to state that in responsible countries like USA, that companies were always fined millions of dollars, whenever they damage the environment as a result of oil spills.

He blamed the country's corrupt governments as also being responsible because they let companies which pollute the environment with oil spills to go scot free. He advised Nigerians to strive to make sure that the bill be made law, implemented and executed.

Instructively, this bill was attached to the National Oil Spill Detention and Response Agency (NOSDRA) which was known as Act 2006, it is now known as Act 2006 amendment bill 2012, and had scaled through second reading in the upper legislative chamber. The bill was set to penalize oil companies involved in abusing the environment through offshore and onshore spilling of oil.

Companies engage in oil spilling are to pay a maximum of N15bn as removal cost for spills that occurs at any onshore facilities, and those that occurs at offshore facilities will pay removable cost not less than N15bn, all this will be executed when the bill becomes law. The bill also stipulates the cost per barrel of oil spilled, and that lies on the facilities, vessels and the places where the oil spills occurs.

The bill also include N50,000 fine per barrel of oil spilled by a tank vessel, N100,000 per barrel for a vessel that is less than 3,000 gross tonnes and N150,000 per barrel for 3,000 gross tone vessel, then any other vessel will pay N250,000 per barrel.