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The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has lamented that the Ogoni cleanup contract has been corrupted as political patronage for politicians to enrich themselves at the detriment of the poor-impacted victims of the oil and gas pollution.
The ERA/FoEN also noted that the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) has become a rubber stamp in the hand of the politicians to scuttle the cleanup of Ogoniland and thus neglecting its core mandate.
Executive Director of ERA, Dr. Godwin Ojo, said the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in the past four years scored near zero for its poor environmental protection record, stressing that there is lack of acceptable key performance indicators for the cleanup.
Ojo, who stated this in Port Harcourt yesterday during an environmental parliament to mark the World Environment Day, however, urged the Federal Government to demonstrate seriousness on environmental protection by establishing a cleanup and remediation fund of $100 billion for the cleanup of the entire Niger Delta to restore the environment and sustain rural livelihoods.
Meanwhile, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has said that oil companies and their agents sponsored criminal gangs to sustain conflicts to break Ogoni resistance to forceful oil resumption.It also warned an oil firms and government agencies to desist from all activities that are currently source of conflicts in Ogoniland.
MOSOP President, Fegalo Nsuke, who stated this yesterday in a statement to celebrate 2019 World Environment Day, said it offers them opportunity to report the state of affairs in Ogoniland, especially in relation to the environment.
According to the statement, the clean-up project has become a symbol of massive corruption in Nigeria, designed to deceive the Ogoni people into accepting oil resumption without broad-based discussions with the people.Besides, the MOSOP has tasked the Rivers State Government to rise up to the challenge and confront the menace of the three-year-old soot ravaging the entire state.
Another factional MOSOP President, Legborsi Pyagbara, said the concentration of the tiny invisible air borne particles threatening the health of citizens of the state, and polluting the environment, must be tackled as a health emergency.
