The Environmental Rights Action (ERA) has accused the Federal Government of abandoning the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) assessment report on Ogoniland pollution.
The Executive Director, (ERA/FoEN), Nnimmo Bassey spoke in Abuja at the weekend at a stakeholders conference on the one-year anniversary of the UNEP report on Ogoniland.
The report, which was submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan on August 4, last year .
Bassey said it is unfortunate that one year after the administration of Jonathan received the report, no action has been taken.
He said: “We are here marking one year of government inaction. Government went to sleep after receiving the report on the issue, eating and swallowing us up. No provision was made in the 2012 Budget to clean up the Ogoniland. Government should make concrete arrangement to clean up the Ogoniland.”
The Executive Director, Centre LSD, Otive Igbuzor, said the report provides foundation upon which trust can be built. He said the clean-up could take 25 years of deploying the latest technology, improved environmental monitoring and collaborative action among government, oil companies and Ogoni people.
Speaking on the topic ‘Urgent action needed to cleanup and restore the Niger Delta,’ Prof. Richard Steiner of the University of Alaska said: “It is truly unfortunate and disappointing that a year after the UNEP report was issued and six years after our original Niger Delta damage assessment and restoration report was issued, very little action has been taken by the federal government of Nigeria, the state governments and the oil industry. And this is a true tragedy.
“The Niger Delta is tragically the most severely petroleum-impacted ecosystem I have seen anywhere in the world (and I have seen many). The extraordinary environmental and social damage has continued for over 50 years now, and continue to this day. As has been said by many, Nigeria is an iconic example of the oil curse.
“The human health impacts detailed in the UNEP report underscore the fact that health of the people of the Niger Delta continues to suffer. In fact, I feel the World Health Organisation should declare a health crisis in the Niger Delta and set about to do what it can to resolve the crisis.”
He said the people of Niger Delta should be compensated in a fair and just manner, for the extraordinary injury caused by continuous neglect by the oil industry and government to the initial sum of $10 billion.
Veronica Kobani, Goi community women leader in Ogoniland and Comfort Warkani, lamented the fate of the Ogoni people.
Kobani said oil spills and pollution have forced her community to migrate.
Warkani appealed to the wife of Mr. President, Patient Jonathan to beg her husband to come to the rescue of Ogoni people.
In July, Minister of Petroleum Diezani Alison-Madueke said the Federal Government would implement the report.
She said the implementation would be overseen by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project.
The UNEP report commissioned by the Federal Government covers contaminated land, groundwater, public health, industry practices and institutional issues.
It recommended the establishment of an Ogoni Environmental Resource Authority to oversee the implementation of the clean-up. It recommended a separate budget for the authority, with an initial capital injection of $1billion contributed by the oil industry and government.
Source: The Nation
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