WHILE battling to remedy the devastating effects of the recent oil spillage at Chevron, Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, has called for urgent measures to ensure that the people of Niger Delta region were saved the catastrophic dangers of the misuse of radioactive sources.

The Governor stated this at the national training workshop on Security of Radioactive Sources in Land and Marine Transport, organised by the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority, NNRA, in conjuction with the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Austria, which opened in Asaba, yesterday.

He said, "given that the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is the centre of activities in the oil and gas industry and is also a very important part of the emerging Gulf of Guinea oil and gas development, it means that radioactive sources will be subjected to both domestic and trans-national movement by land and marine transportation."

Represented by the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Tony Nwaka, the Governor said "genuine and transparent measures must be taken to ensure that our people in the Niger Delta are saved from the catastrophic dangers of the misuse of radioactive sources, as they are still contending with the devastation of their environment through oil exploration and exploitation."

The Director-General of the NNRA, Prof. Shamsideen Elegba in his keynote address, said "in co-operation with the IAEA and the United States Department of Energy, NNRA has embarked on the recovery and securing of vulnerable High-Risk Nuclear and other radioactive materials in the country, which may be targeted for malicious uses.

"These include legacy sources and orphan sources within and outside the petroleum industry. For the purpose of recovery of the legacy and orphan sources, a Mobile Radiological Emergency Laboratory had been acquired. All locations with substantial quantity of radioactive sources will be traced and linked by a network to the National Nuclear and Radiological Emergency Centre located at the NNRA headquarters," he added.