HUNDREDS of Ogoni took to the streets at Ogale-Eleme, Rivers State to protest the non-implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s report.
Meanwhile, the Pro National Conference Organisation (PRONACO), has okayed the August 2, 2012 declaration of the Ogoni people for political autonomy and self-determination of their people and territory within Nigeria.
The protesters demanded potable water. The Rivers State government, which has been supplying water through tankers to Elele for a while has denied any role in the implementation of the UNEP report.
The crowd that took to the streets chanting anti-government songs comprised chiefs, youths, men, woman, environmental activists, all carrying bottles filled with clean water, which symbolises what they expected from the Federal Government, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), since the report was published last year.
Besides, Richard Steiner, who is a professor and conservation biologist, has said that “The Niger Delta is tragically the most severely petroleum-impacted ecosystem I have seen anywhere in the world.”
He expressed surprise that the UNEP’s report was yet to be implemented.
Piqued by the failure of the Federal Government to appreciate the danger his community faced as a result of the decades of the degradation of Ogale-Eleme environment, King Godwin Bebe Okpabi lamented that since the report was submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan last year, no government or Shell official had visited the community.
Okpabi regretted that the failure to implement the report was a sheer manifestation that no one in government seemed to appreciate the urgency the recommendations contained in the painstaking UNEP report demanded.
Mr. Andah Wai-Ogusu of the Nigeria Environmental Society expressed deep concern of a possible outbreak of epidemic in Ogale-Eleme if nothing was done expeditiously to check the spread of contaminated underground water.
Steiner who spoke at the weekend on the one year anniversary of UNEP’s report conference held in Abuja, observed that the extraordinary environmental and social damage in the oil-rich Niger Delta region had continued for over 50 years.
Lamenting the plight of the people of the region, he noted: “As has been said by many, Nigeria is an iconic example of the oil curse. The human health impact detailed in the UNEP’s report underscores 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.”
In a statement issued yesterday in Lagos by its spokesperson, Olawale Okunniyi, PRONACO stressed that “the time has come for the indigenous peoples and federating units in Nigeria to deliver their peoples and territories from the pilfering and violent centralised structure operating in the country.”
PRONACO said the Ogoni people’s declaration for self determination and political autonomy was a long awaited and the only way to go for the Nigerian federating peoples “since the predatory political cartel in the country is not willing to allow the Nigerian people negotiate and agree the terms of their well being at a national conference.”
PRONACO urged other indigenous peoples in the country to immediately back and follow the wise step of the Ogoni people, commending the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) on their vision to invoke the United Nations Charter on the self determination for indigenous peoples. The coalition of ethnic nationalities and social movements in Nigeria said the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which forms the basis on which the Ogoni people made their declaration, was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly during its 62nd session at UN Headquarters in New York City on September 13, 2007 with Nigeria present and endorsing it.
PRONACO however declared that self determination and political autonomy for the Nigerian federating units was also one of the key resolutions of its people’s national conference attended by delegates of 200 ethnic nationalities and social movements in the country between 2005 and 2006.
It stressed that what the Ogoni people had done was legitimate and not new, as advanced countries like Britain, Canada, China, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) among others had all adopted self determination principles in governing and advancing the prosperity in their diversity.
“The indigenous peoples and social forces in Nigeria have been very patient with the Nigerian government to convene a national conference where the diverse peoples forced by colonial Britain into the artificial Nigerian union can peacefully negotiate the terms of their association but the political cabal in its usual arrogance has consistently bungled that grace but prefers to foist wasteful cosmetic venture of amending the flawed 1999 imposed constitution on the people.”
Source: The Guardian Nigeria
NEWS TERMS AND CONDITIONS:The news contents provided on this website are all sourced from different news media. Please refer back to the news source at the end of every news posted on our site for enquiries about the root source of a particular news. HURAC is not a Newspaper agent, we only post news on this site that will interest our readers and those that care reading them. We don’t employ journalists that go about to get up-to-date news around Ogoni, Niger Delta, Nigeria, or the world at large.
HURAC.
