Advocacy Centre, others launch App to monitor, document, report oil spills in Niger Delta

Stanley Ihedigbo

Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria), in partnership with Tech4Rural, a non-governmental organization based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, has developed an application (App) for the monitoring, detection, documentation, and reporting of crude oil spills in Nigeria.

According to the Executive Director, YEAC-Nigeria, Dr. Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, the App, called _CoMaPeo_, is developed in partnership with Awana Digital, San Francisco, California, USA.

The App, which is available on Google Play Store, was being test-run for improvement over the past months and is now ready to launch at an event organized by Tech4Rural titled “Niger Delta: Oiled and abandoned,” scheduled to be hold in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, on Saturday, October 11, 2025.

At the event, which has, Director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Rev. (Dr.) Nnimmo Basseyas the keynote speaker and the Executive Director of Advocacy Centre, Dr Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, as one of the panelists, the focus will chiefly be on the screening and premiering of a documentary about the oiling and abandoning of the Niger Delta, while CoMapeo would be launched and briefly introduced as part of measures and contributions to addressing issues associated with oil pollution in the region.

Thereafter, on a communicated date this October, 2025, the YEAC-Nigeria will host an event in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where the details of the App would not only be made known in technical details but members of the Advocacy Centre’s Crude Oil Spill Alert System (COSAS), other volunteers, and interested members of the public would be trained on the use of CoMaPeo for oil spill tracking.

Fyneface, in a statement in Port Harcourt on October 9 ahead of the event and App’s unveiling further said that while the App, which is also used to perform other functions as shown on it when downloaded, is currently available and downloadable on the Google Play Store, the features that allow it to be used for oil spill monitoring, detection, documentation, and reporting, amongst others, would only be available and visible on the App to authorised persons such as those trained and assigned for recognition by CoMaPeo during usage.

The Advocacy Centre expresses appreciation to the Executive Director of Tech4Rural, Mr. Jethro Chris, for originating, domesticating the initiative and collaborating with the YEAC-Nigeria as the App Project adds to the long list of initiatives at the Advocacy Centre aimed at mitigating pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft, artisanal refineries and environmental pollution in the Niger Delta.

Fyneface identifies and listed the initiatives of the Advocacy Centre which CoMapeo adds to, as part of measures focused on addressing the environmental crisis, youths and livelihood issues in the region to include existing networks and groups that monitor, detect and report oil spills amongst others such as the One Million Youth Volunteers Network of Human Rights Defenders and Promoters in the Niger Delta, the Crude Oil Spill Alert System (COSAS), the Network on Organized Crime in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea (NOCINAG), the Presidential Artisanal Crude Oil Refining Development Initiative (PACORDI), the Modular Refineries advocacy as a transition alternative livelihood opportunities for artisanal refiners in the Niger Delta, Renewable Energy advocacy and projects including the YEAC Solar Mini-Grid Ecotricity facility, the National Conference on Organised Crime in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea (NACOCINAG), the proposed Taskforce on Organised Crime in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea (now proposed by the Federal Government as ECOWAS Standby Force), and the Nigeria Coast and Border Guards (NCBC) that its Bill including that of PACORDI are before the National Assembly among others aimed at pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft, artisanal refineries, environmental pollution, and other oil theft mitigation mechanisms for Nigeria.