The Flare That Stole Motherhood

In Oyigbo, a 29-year-old trader complains of choking smoke she always sensed in her room.

She has complained this to neighbors who also affirm her complaint. In four years of marriage she has had two miscarriages.

Her folder at the government-owned Teaching Hospital says unexplained infertility. On her street, three other women describe the same loss.

Neighbours told her to go to church for deliverance. Her mother-in-law suggested her husband take a second wife. At the market, women asked if she had aborted in secondary school. She stopped attending naming ceremonies. The cost of stigma was silence.

Her husband initially refused a test. "Man no dey infertile na woman womb," he said.

In July, after counselling at UPTH, he did. The result showed low sperm count. That changed the blame from her alone to both. Male infertility accounts for about 40 percent of cases nationally, but testing is rarely discussed.

The choky smoke has a federal paper trail. In 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme, commissioned by the Nigerian government, assessed Ogoniland. In Nisisioken Ogale, UNEP found families drinking water with benzene at over 900 times the World Health Organization guideline, near a Nigerian National Petroleum Company pipeline.

Scientists found an 8 cm layer of refined oil on groundwater. The report said Ogale required emergency action ahead of all other remediation. Emergency water reached only 40 communities by August 2025, according to HYPREP releases from June 2021, June 2023 and August 2025 covering schemes in Ebubu, Bodo, Eteo and Taabaa.

Benzene and associated chemicals matter for reproduction. Crude contains BTEX, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals. In the body they can act as endocrine disruptors, altering hormones that regulate menstruation and sperm development.

A review by government hospitals' researchers noted associations in scientific literature between such exposure and infertility, reduced sperm quality and menstrual irregularities. Laboratory work cited by the authorities observed progressive decline in testosterone and sperm parameters after gasoline vapour exposure.

Doctors in Port Harcourt have said it publicly. At the #StopTheSoot conference organised by the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Eco, Dr. Bienye Briggs warned that long-term exposure to hydrocarbon soot could be linked to sterility in men, infertility in women, preterm delivery and low birth weight.

Two major contributors were listed in that public meeting: gas flaring, present since the 1960s, and artisanal refining, called kpo-fire, expanded in the last 15 years. The Rivers State task force on soot chaired by Prof. Roseline Konya found both illegal refining and burning of seized products by security operatives contributed to airborne deposits.

The soot is not anecdotal. Since November 2016, Port Harcourt has recorded recurrent black carbon. A study in the Asian Journal of Medicine and Health linking UPTH cases to particulate matter cited flaring and refining as sources. The state environment ministry has recorded PM2.5 around 29 micrograms per cubic metre.

In Bille, a riverine community in Rivers State, leaders reported bubbles from creeks in late 2025 and shared a field sheet they attributed to NOSDRA showing elevated hydrocarbon readings.

NOSDRA and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission were contacted for confirmation and did not respond at press time. NNPCL has previously said it is cooperating with remediation through HYPREP.

Pregnancy losses are documented in fragments. A Niger Delta cohort study found 8.4 percent stillbirth in high-exposure areas versus 4.6 percent in low-exposure areas. A 2023 paper in Cureus found women and providers perceived contaminated food and water as a factor in miscarriages and stillbirths.

WHO’s 2018 report on air pollution and child health warned prenatal exposure can harm newborn outcomes. At a fertility clinic, registrars not authorised to speak publicly said off-record that unexplained infertility appears more frequent among couples within five kilometres of flare sites, but documentation is weak because male partners often decline semen analysis.

Without a registry, families pay privately. A single IVF cycle in Port Harcourt costs N1.5 million to N4 million. The National Health Insurance Authority does not cover it. Along Mile 1 and Aba Road, mixtures promising to wash the womb sell for up to N200,000. Doctors report complications from such insertions that worsen infertility.

The gap is counting. The Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey does not track infertility by environmental exposure. The Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme has shifted deadlines repeatedly. HYPREP publishes tank numbers but not independent water quality results per community. Air quality data from Port Harcourt stations is not published in real time.

The trader still keeps complains of the choky smoke. Her file no longer says only her problem. It says both partners, and an environment that has not been counted.

Breaking infertility stigma in Port Harcourt, her case shows, means talking about soot, about male tests, and about a file that says unexplained when the air outside is unexplained too.

Chukwu writes from Imo State.