Hamisu Muhammad And Aisha Umar
19 November 2008
The Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA) and the United State Embassy in Abuja are collaborating to search for nuclear and radioactive substances scattered in the country. US Ambassador to Nigeria, Robin Renee Sanders yesterday donated nuclear radiation detection equipment to the Nigerian government worth $100,000 (about N1.1billion) to search for the sources.
The Director General of the NNRA, Prof. Shams Elegba said radioactive sources are scattered everywhere in the country, especially the oil producing region, "We need to find them and bring them all under regulatory control".
Speaking at training programme for security personnel engaged to search and secure the radioactive sources, Prof. Elegba said the petroleum industry is the largest importer and user of radioactive sources in the country. "In several transactions between the oil companies and the service companies using radioactive sources, alot of undeclared personae are involved. These include those who transport the sources from the bunkers of the service company to storage pits at the facilities of the oil companies." He said there are thousands of radioactive sources for various applications in the country mainly used for nuclear well-logging, industrial radiography, nuclear gauging, radio tracing.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
