CONCERNED and exasperated Nigerians must feel utterly betrayed by the government’s stance about the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Report on the havoc wrecked in Ogoni land, Rivers State, by the activities of oil companies.
No longer able to smother popular clamour for action against the worsening conditions in Ogoni following the degradation of the land, the Federal Government of Nigeria commissioned UNEP to investigate reports of death and environmental disasters arising from oil pollution in the area. The global community of environmental activists and local stakeholders lauded the Nigerian authorities for wading into a grave matter its predecessors, had randomly shunted sideways.
There was worldwide interest for a host of reasons. First it had to do with a region that produces crude, the commodity that substantially oils international relations and commerce. Secondly, one of the world’s biggest oil companies, Shell, was at the centre of charges of devastation of the environment in Ogoni land.
The issue had also remained knotty threatening to consume Nigeria with seasonal moves by the Ogoni leaders to pull out of Nigeria. Fourthly, it had dawned on the world that unrestrained industrial practises of oil companies were largely responsible for the adverse effects of the climatic change and there was a need to assess the impact through the type of investigation the Nigerian government had ordered.
The UNEP Report was submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan in August 2011 and he promised action would be taken. It marked a watershed. It hit at the oil companies, notably Shell, and the Federal Government for 50 years of destruction of sea, forest and human lives in Ogoni. It turned out a verdict long known to Nigerians and their successive governments: repeated oil spills running into thousands of barrels over the decades have rendered the area uninhabitable!
The UNEP report said the region, home to nine villages harbouring hundreds of thousands of people, with drinking water contaminated with toxic substance at levels 900 times over the acceptable World Health Organisation levels.
A rehabilitation process must start in the area, the UN said. It added that Ogoni needs what it called “the world’s biggest ever oil clean up”. UNEP said this would take at least 25 years and costing an initial one billion dollars. The report recommended the establishment of an Ogoni Environmental Resource Authority to oversee the implementation of the clean-up. It also called for a separate budget for the authority, with an initial capital injection of one billion dollars contributed by government and the oil industry.
Does it not appear to speak of the indifferent attitude of a government to the avoidable deprivation of its citizens, that more than a year after the submission of UNEP’s Report, the authorities are yet to implement its recommendations?
The indicted oil companies have been as apathetic. All that government has done is to set up, only a few weeks ago, the Hydro-Carbon Pollution Restoration Project to oversee UNEP’s report.
Why would a government with a constitutional mandate to protect its citizens, abandon this fundamental duty for more than a year and also allow a multinational to endanger the ecosystem with impunity?
Such fatal acts of flagrant breach of industrial safety standards are promptly punished in saner climes. When British Petroleum’s well burst in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and thrust millions of barrels of into the sea, it had to pay billions of dollars in compensation to victims of the disaster. It did not take a UN report or a whole year to undertake this conventional restitution.
Transnational organisations that trample on the laws of Nigeria are merely following in the footsteps of the host government whose take on governance suggests that it has little respect for the welfare of its citizens. This explains why Shell which has admitted responsibility for two major spills, has not addressed the problem.
The Nigerian government must drop its unholy affinity (that is what it amounts to) with Shell and other conglomerates in the assault on the citizens. We urge it to provide the budgetary contribution on the rehabilitating Ogoni as demanded by UNEP. Next it must go beyond the report and institute a far-reaching reconstruction programme for Ogoni, the kind of Marshall Plan Europe enjoyed after World War Two. What is happening in Ogoni at the moment approximates the aftermath of a war.
Only a serious government seen to be so committed to its citizens can summon the courage to demand strict compliance of its laws from multinationals. Those who break the laws can then be punished.
Source: OgoniNews
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