‘Ogoni clean up of worries’ 18 August 2020

Environmental activists have strongly condemned the inability of National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) to monitor the clean-up Ogoni land. The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), particularly urged the Federal Government to set aside $100 billion for the clean-up of all oil polluted sites in the Niger Delta and compensate affected communities. Executive Director, ERA, Godwin Ojo, stressed that the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) procurement process was significantly flawed. He told audience at the ninth Ogoni environmental assessment report implementation in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, that the agency’s processes lacked transparency and were not open to public scrutiny.

…“It has been nine years of motion without movement, nine years of unfulfilled promises, nine years of high level manipulations by the Nigerian State, as well as years of opaqueness and unacceptable operations by HYPREP. It has been nine years cluttered with a litany of failures and continuous discontent throughout Ogoni. “There are concerns that the laboratories in Port Harcourt where soil samples from the clean up sites are taken for analysis have been compromised. We have testimonies from workers in the field that most samples do not meet regulatory or contractual requirements, but they are given the ‘all clear’ by these labs.

… In an earlier event, Programme Manager, ERA/FoEN, Michael Karikpor, had said Just Energy Transition of Nigeria (JETN), groups and women leaders, especially from the Niger Delta, gathered together in the meeting to fashion a way to increase awareness and advocacy for Nigeria to transit from fossil fuels as the main stay of the economy giving the reality of the current situation, where the world itself is moving away from the fossil fuel. He added that the meeting was “to build a coalition of people, men and women advocating for Nigeria to start moving towards a more sustainable economy that incorporate everybody, economy that takes the issues of women and gender on board as the world moves away from fossil fuels.”