Commonly, a cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. It is ignited at one end, causing it to smoulder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opposite end. Cigarette smoking is the most common method of tobacco consumption.
For those who know better, the term cigarette refers to a tobacco cigarette. But the word is sometimes used to refer to other substances, such as a cannabis cigarette or a herbal cigarette. A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its usually smaller size, use of processed leaf, different smoking method, and paper wrapping, which is typically white.
Like the giant cigarette in the oil-bearing communities of the Niger Delta, ‘manufactured’ by the environmentally terrorising petroleum industry, there are significant adverse health effects from smoking cigarettes such as cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, congenital disabilities, and other health problems relating to nearly every organ of the body.
Most modern cigarettes are filtered, although this does not mean that the smoke inhaled from them contains fewer carcinogens and harmful chemicals. Nicotine, the psychoactive drug in tobacco, makes cigarettes highly addictive.
About half of cigarette smokers die of tobacco-related disease and lose on average 14 years of life. Every year, cigarette smoking causes more than eight million deaths worldwide; more than 1.3 million of these are non-smokers dying as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke.
While these harmful effects have led to legislation that has prohibited smoking in many workplaces and public areas, regulated marketing and purchasing age of tobacco, and levied taxes to discourage cigarette use, in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s honey comb, persisting gas flaring is threatening most marriages.
Unarguably, decades of oil pollution in the region have given rise to an unusual heat pattern that is adversely affecting the area’s climate and potentially threatening to disrupt marriages. The severe heat in the area is said to be instigated by the scourge of gas flaring, which is tearing married couples apart at night and even during the daytime.
In 2024, a group of women in Rivers State marched to the office of Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) over what they described as their inability to have conjugal relationships with their husbands due to the heat. The women carried placards with inscriptions such as ‘No Light, No Payment’, ‘The Heat is too much’, etc.
The protesting women said their husbands no longer touched them at night due to the heat, lamenting their inability to preserve cooked foods for weeks as a result of the power outage. They also stated that their businesses had been severely impacted due to poor power supply.
The leader of the protesting women, Maria Ike, said, “We have decided to let the world know what we are going through in the hands of PHED. The poor supply in our area is at a zero level, despite our monthly payments to PHED.
“We no longer have romance and conjugal relationships with our husbands because of so much heat due to power failure. Our businesses have collapsed due to a power outage. This is affecting our families.”
Reacting, PHED’s Public Relations Officer, Livingstone Koko, stated that the issue of poor power supply is a nationwide problem, claiming that PHED is doing its best to improve the power supply in the state.
Interestingly, the Niger Delta is a large area in southern Nigeria that is home to approximately 30 million people, although the exact states included in the Niger Delta vary. For the Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN), the core states are Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta, where most of its work is focused, with some activities in the surrounding states of Akwa Ibom, Cross River, and Edo.
Sometimes the states of Abia, Imo, and Ondo are also included in the definition of the Niger Delta region. According to SDN, “the region is biodiverse, with its mangroves providing carbon sequestration capacity and supporting a wide variety of plant and animal life, as well as the agriculture and fishing on which many in the region rely for their livelihoods.
“It also sits on top of significant hydrocarbon reserves. Oil was discovered in the 1950s, and the industry which has developed around it has become central to Nigeria’s economy. Its high-quality crude oil is exported worldwide, with total daily production averaging around two million barrels per day in 2018, the latest year for which official figures are available.
“Petroleum exports account for around 87% of Nigeria’s total exports, and therefore a large amount of its foreign exchange. Although 2016 saw oil revenue fall below 50% of total government revenue, this was during a significant drop in production volumes due to pipeline bombings and a substantial drop in the oil price, and the Nigerian government
The government remains highly dependent on oil income.
“This means public spending is significantly exposed to international price volatility; the long-term goal of the Nigerian government to address this is to diversify the economy away from the export of oil as a commodity.”
Effect of Heat Radiation from Gas Flaring
Without a doubt, the multi-billion-dollar oil industry in Nigeria has had a profound impact on the country in numerous ways. It has fashioned a remarkable economic landscape for the country. Still, on the other hand, ever since the discovery of oil in Nigeria in the 1950s, the government has been suffering the negative environmental consequences of oil development.
For those who are aware, the negative impacts of these unwanted by-products introduced by the company are becoming catastrophic, as authorities have allowed them to accumulate.
The growth of the country’s oil industry, combined with a population explosion and inadequate environmental regulation, has led to substantial environmental damage, predominantly in the Niger Delta region, the heart of the country’s oil industry.
For instance, the frequent flaring of natural gas in the Niger Delta during oil production is the primary cause, making natural gas the leading source of carbon emissions in Nigeria.
The people in most oil-bearing communities live with gas stacks that flare gas 24 hours a day at a temperature of 13,000 °C. According to a 2004 World Bank Report, gases flared produced 35 million tons of CO2 and 12 million tons of methane, more than the rest of the world.
Unarguably, the oil industry in Nigeria is, therefore, the single most significant source of global warming in the world. That is why the impact of gas flaring in Nigeria is of local and international concern.
A typical gas flare in any oil field in the Niger Delta is located at ground level, surrounded by thick vegetation, farmland, and village huts, 20-30m from the flare station. The heat radiation from the flare station is a function of the flare temperature, gas flow rate and the geometrical design of the flare stack.
Environmental rights groups have persistently argued that the combustion of gaseous hydrocarbons contained in natural gas is an exothermic process, resulting in the evolution of heat into the atmosphere. This, according to them, endangers both the plant and animal life around the vicinity of gas flaring stations. Although the mechanism of radiant energy transfer is not entirely understood, the associated phenomenon is explained in terms of dualistic theory.
For researchers, this theory addresses the emission and reception of radiation separately, as well as its transmission. Radiation is emitted and received in discrete packets of energy called photons. The geometric relationships between the emitting and receiving surfaces have been kept very simple by arranging for the emitting surface to see only the receiving surfaces. In practice, it is not possible for heat radiated to strike the receiver completely.
A 2002 research study published its findings, concluding that this necessitated the introduction of a geometrical factor to relate the radiant energy striking a surface to the total radiant energy emitted. Interestingly, while the concept of heat as a pollutant may seem impossible during the harmattan (winter), as it is presently, it is essential to note that at any time of the year, an increase in water temperature affects aquatic life.
The heat pollution that the protesting women are concerned about is a consequence of the rise in energy demand resulting from human activities. For instance, again, the power plants burn fossil fuel or nuclear fuel to provide the energy needed for industrial consumption, and they release considerable amounts of heat.
The power plants that release these vast amounts of energy are located near bodies of water, which the plant uses for heat dissipation purposes. Living things, especially cold-blooded animals like fish, are susceptible to even slight changes in average temperature.
It has been reported that fish hatch their eggs before the hatching period due to a change in water temperature. It may also prevent fish eggs from hatching at all. Additionally, a slight rise in average temperature could lead to a profound climatic change.
Some experts believe a slight temperature rise would cause the Greenland and Antarctic ice to melt, raising ocean levels and inundating large areas of land. In 2007, a researcher submitted a study indicating that the average worldwide temperature can be affected when products of combustion, such as carbon monoxide, water vapour, and carbon dioxide, are emitted in large quantities into the atmosphere.
Thus, the heat from gas flares falls on the soil, thereby heating it, which increases heat deposition in the soil and reduces diseases generally. It may not be suitable for some plants and crops to survive, hence rendering such land unsuitable for cultivation.
While there is therefore, a significant physiological impact on crops planted in the vicinity of the gas flares station, it has been reported that there could be about 100% loss in yield of crops cultivated 200m away from the flares stations, 45% loss in yield of crops at 600m away and 10% loss in yield of crops cultivated 1000m away.
Land Surface Temperature
Furthermore, environmentalists report a general increase in land surface temperature (LST) in the Niger Delta, with an average rise of 1.43°C between 2004 and 2015 across various urban land use areas.
The estimated heat flux ranges from 30.55 to 102.05 W/m² in 2004, but increased to ranges from 33.25 to 120.06 W/m² in 2015. The average heat flux was nearly 30.12 W/m² during the wet season, but significantly higher during the dry season, with an average heat flux of almost 215.75 W/m². The increase in LST appeared to be a result of changes in land use and land cover in the cities.
The results further show that different land uses exhibit varying degrees of LST during both wet and dry seasons, with temperatures nearly 2°C higher in dry seasons compared to wet seasons.
These results suggest that urban expansion in the Delta has led to variations in boundary currents and higher temperatures in the city’s area compared to its immediate rural regions. The significant findings of this study are that changes in land use influence urban climate, urban heat redistribution, and other hydrosphere processes.
The study established the potential health implications of increasing LST and heat flux in the cities. However, a lack of long-term and high-quality health data made it very difficult to attribute the expansion or resurgence of diseases to changes in urban environments.
Numerous studies have shown that thermal conditions often contribute to heat syndrome, one of the health issues in cities. The impacts of urban expansion have been estimated, based on these studies, to result in high temperatures in city centres when comparing observations in the towns with those in surrounding rural areas.
Investigating the extent to which urban areas are warmer than surrounding rural areas is crucial for both urban dwellers and biodiversity. The majority of published studies have noted that human activities lead to morphological changes in vegetation coverage and general land use and land cover change (LULCC).
These studies established that the introduction of impervious surfaces in urban areas is the leading cause of changes in urban LST. This scenario usually leads to rises in temperature in urban areas compared with nearby rural areas. For example, a 2016 study noted the changes in land use options and the removal of vegetation resulting from urban expansion in newly developed areas of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei metropolitan area.
The study indicated that the removal of vegetation has dramatically influenced the urban microclimates in the city. Other studies have recently reported that urban expansion plays a dominant role in the increase of urban LST and heat fluxes within cities in both developed and developing countries.
In the Niger Delta, urbanisation is said to be one of the many ways in which humans are altering the Niger Delta environment. Rapid urbanisation resulting from oil industrialisation is one of the critical factors responsible for land use changes in the region.
On the other hand, some studies are claiming that rural-urban migration is a major driver of urban growth in the Delta And, the population growth rate in the oil regíon has been projected as 3.1%, based on last population census and this tends to suggest that there has been a remarkable growth in urban populations in the region, going by a 2006 report by the Niger Delta Development Commissioner (NDDC).
For instance, in 1960, the populations of Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, and Warri, the commercial hub of Delta State, were 179,563 and 55,254, respectively. In 1991, their populations stood at 440,399 and 326,643, respectively, according to 2006 data from the National Population Commission (NPC).
This implies that rapid urban expansion and increases in population density in major cities of the Niger Delta are having serious consequences, such as changes in land use and land cover, overcrowding, and alterations in LST in some major cities of the oil region.
Students of urban and regional planning in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, are quick to note that urban expansion in the region has led to higher temperatures in the urban environment compared to its immediate rural areas.
Studies have equally shown that energy processes and fluxes determine urban climate, urban heat redistribution and other hydrosphere processes. 2015 studies have shown that remote sensing provides a unique dataset not only for urban expansion studies but also for the spatial and temporal distribution of energy and heat fluxes.
Oil and Climate Change
According to experts, pollution is a term that defines any environmental state or manifestation which is harmful or unpleasant to life. It can also be defined as the introduction of natural and artificial particulate contaminants into the atmosphere.
This can be caused by humans’ failure to control the chemical, physical, or biological consequences or side effects of their scientific, industrial, and social activities. Industrial sources of pollution result from the release of hazardous waste and massive amounts of unclear gases and other airborne particles produced as by-products in process industries.
Based on their field experience, environmental monitors from the Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN) stated that pollutants are generally emitted into the atmosphere as either gases or particles and are eventually removed by natural self-cleansing processes. Morris Alagoa, EDEN’s Deputy Executive Director, a veteran field monitor, notes that the waste primarily originates from the burning of fossil fuels and the processing of materials by industries.
Other sources known to the group include waste from burning engines in cars, fuel use in domestic sectors, the oil boom, gas flaring, and agricultural processes. However, of all these, the process industries have been recognised as the primary source of air pollutants. The self-cleansing ability of the atmosphere, which involves dispersion and dilution, is currently too small and cannot match the rate of pollutant introduction into the atmosphere, due to meteorological influences.
Like EDEN, Nnimmo Bassey’s Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) has consistently maintained that the activities of oil companies in the Niger Delta are significant sources of environmental pollution in the country. That explains why oil-bearing communities have been instituting legal actions against the oil and gas majors. They consider the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas major, Shell, and the Italian oil giant, Eni (formerly Agip), for instance, responsible for polluting their environment through the relentless flaring and venting of gas into the environment.
Gas flaring poses a significant environmental hazard to the country as a whole. Over the years, EDEN and HOMEF have been shouting from the rooftops that so much damage is being done to the environment through gas flaring, arguing that if nothing is done in a few years, serious environmental and health problems, such as premature death and diseases, will emerge.
Such things are happening already. Besides the noise produced by the fire at the flare sites, the thick smoke that billows into the sky contains poisonous gases, which give rise to acid rain and eventually poison streams, lakes, lagoons, and rivers, thereby destroying aquatic organisms and making the water unhealthy for drinking. It has been proven that gas flaring generates heat, which is felt over an average radius of 0.5 kilometres, thereby causing thermal pollution.
Gas flaring causes a greenhouse effect, thereby contributing to global warming and the release of greenhouse gases, including water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides.
Greenhouse Effect
Ecologists describe the greenhouse effect as a warming of the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere that tends to intensify with an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The atmosphere allows a large percentage of the sun’s visible light rays to reach the Earth’s surface, heating it.
The Earth’s surface radiates a portion of this energy in the form of long-wave infrared radiation, much of which is absorbed by molecules of carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmosphere and is reflected to the surface as heat.
With the development, the natural system, the atmosphere, land and sea, as well as life and plants therein, are being disturbed. And, due to the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by modern industrial societies, the widespread combustion of fossil fuels—coal, oil, and natural gas —is intensifying the greenhouse effect on Earth.
Researchers say that an increase in atmospheric concentrations of other trace gases, such as chlorofluorocarbons (freons), nitrous oxide, and methane, due to human activity is equally aggravating greenhouse conditions.
EDEN Tackles NOSDRA, NESREA
In the meantime, EDEN, a rights-based advocacy group, is strongly condemning a situation where regulatory agencies—the National Oil Spill Detection and Remediation Agency (NOSDRA) and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA)—are failing to fulfil their duties.
This is due to the persistent 24-hour gas flare from an oil and gas processing plant in Bayelsa State, which is once again drawing attention to the environmental and health toll faced daily by communities in the Niger Delta.
Relief in Sight for Niger Delta as NUPRC Unveils Gas-Focused Transition Plan
Amid mounting calls for environmental and economic reform in the Niger Delta, hope may finally be on the horizon. The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has announced a bold gas-centric transition strategy aimed at eliminating routine gas flaring by 2030 and cutting methane emissions by 60% by 2031.
The Commission’s Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe, disclosed on Wednesday, July 2, during the 24th Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) Energy Week Conference 2025.
Delivering a keynote address at a strategic session themed: “Positioning Nigeria’s Upstream Oil & Gas for Energy Security, Sustainability and Economic Resilience,” Komolafe highlighted the core objectives of the strategy: leveraging Nigeria’s abundant gas resources to create thousands of green jobs while driving sustainable energy practices.
According to him, the transition plan aligns with key national initiatives such as: ‘The Decade of Gas’, ‘Nigeria Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP)’ and ‘The Presidential Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Initiative’
Together, these programs underscore the Commission’s commitment to not only cleaner energy but also economic inclusiveness, job creation, and a healthier environment for oil-bearing communities that have long been burdened by industrial pollution.
