Ogoni clean-up: MOSOP warn politicians against sabotage
The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP)
has warned politicians against sabotaging the clean-up of Ogoniland, as
recommended by a team of environmentalists from the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP).
MOSOP, Friday in Port Harcourt, through its President, Legborsi Saro
Pyagbara, stated that it had uncovered an evil plot by internal and
external politicians, as well as their cronies, to politicise the
planned Ogoni environmental remediation and restoration process,
to
advance some parochial political and economic agenda, capable of
thwarting the success of the exercise.
The umbrella organisation of Ogoni people asked the saboteurs to
steer clear of the implementation arrangements, declaring that any
further attempt at undermining the process would be viewed as an affront
against the collective interest of the Ogoni people and would be
decisively resisted.
MOSOP said: “We insist that the environmental degradation of
Ogoniland, which has compromised our general well-being, is not a
political issue. Dragging the fast-tracking actions into the murky
waters of politics demonstrates inexcusable callousness that should be
condemned by all, especially lovers of safe and clean environment.
“We are warning external collaborators who have, and are providing
resources including their platforms for the secret, devious agenda to
realise that they are known and sooner than later, they will be exposed.
“We have come a long way, and we urge all Ogoni to come together,
irrespective of interest, as we cannot afford to falter at this time of
seeming genuine interest of government to redress the environmental
wrongs against the Ogoni people. We urge all Ogoni people to heed our
advice, as we will resist all attempts to frustrate efforts at ensuring
environmental justice for our people.”
The umbrella organisation of Ogoni people also stated that the
condition in local Ogoni communities, where the people had been reaping
deaths and facing crushing livelihoods should bother everybody.
MOSOP insisted that end must come to environmental injustice in Ogoniland, thereby ensuring environmental security.
UNEP’s environmental assessment of Ogoniland was initiated by former
President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006, in order to put an end to the many
years of pollution, neglect, environmental degradation and
marginalisation in Ogoni, especially since 1958, when crude oil was
first discovered in commercial quantity in Ogoniland and to adequately
empower the people.
The Ogoni environmental assessment was adequately supported by the
late President Umaru Yar’Adua, while UNEP report, containing
far-reaching recommendations was released on August 4, 2011 and
presented in Abuja to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on August 12, 2011.
Rather than implementing the UNEP report, the Jonathan’s
administration, on the eve of the first anniversary of the release of
the UNEP report, in July 2012, set up the Hydrocarbon Pollution
Restoration Project (HYPREP), which MOSOP kicked against, in spite of
making an Ogoni daughter, Mrs. Joy Nunieh-Okunnu, its National
Coordinator.
During the presidential campaigns, the then General Muhammadu Buhari
visited Ogoniland and he promised the stakeholders that upon his
election as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he would
ensure the full implementation of the recommendations contained in the
UNEP report, thereby ending environmental terrorism in Ogoniland, with a
stop to be put to pollution, marginalisation, environmental degradation
and lack of empowerment in the four Ogoni LGAs of Khana, Gokana, Eleme
and Tai.
President Buhari, on August 5 this year, exactly sixty eight days in
office, approved the actions to fast-track the implementation of the
UNEP report, with the decision described by the stakeholders across the
globe, as a welcome development.
The UNEP report stated that the water in Nsisioken-Ogale-Eleme, Eleme
(Ogoni) LGA of Rivers state, contained cancer-causing Benzene
(carcinogen), which was 900 times the World Health Organisation’s
(WHO’s) standards for water contamination, thereby requiring urgent
attention.
The report also revealed that the sustainable environmental
restoration of Ogoniland would take up to 20 years to achieve and would
require coordinated efforts from government agencies at all levels,
thereby recommending that the Federal Government should establish an
Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority.
The UNEP report indicated that the full environmental restoration of
Ogoniland would be a project, which would take 30 years to complete,
after the pollution had been brought to an end, while recommending the
establishment of an Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, with
initial fund of $1 billion for capacity building, skill transfer and
conflict resolution and that the management of the fund should be the
responsibility of the Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority.
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