In this interview with ANN GODWIN, Human rights activist and leader of Social Action, Mr. Celestine Akpobari, describes the situation in Ogoni land as annoying because the once vibrant economy of the people has been destroyed. This story was first published in THEGUARDIAN.
AS a stakeholder in Ogoni land, how do you feel one year after the UNEP report was submitted to the Federal Government, and nothing serious has been done to address the damages?
The attitude of the Federal Government towards the United Nations Environment Programme report was unexpected because we are in Nigeria but what is confusing is that UNEP is an international organisation and the job they came to do in Ogoni was not the job Ogoni asked them to do.
It is Federal Government and Shell that hired them to do the job; so, I am at a loss as to why the Federal Government and Shell that hired UNEP to do a job will not implement the outcome of the job they asked them to do. That is what is confusing me.
Again, the report that UNEP presented is not something that is new; all what they did was to validate the same thing we had been talking about over the years. It was the same thing that Ken Saro-Wiwa shouted about — like environmental degradation: that the Ogoni were dying gradually, health deteriorating, everything was going, the means of livelihood going — as a result of oil-related pollution and emission and no body listened to that cry.
It is so bad. That report is a death sentence; it shows that the future of the Ogoni is gone; it shows that the area is polluted above 900 times the level recommended by World Health Organisation (WHO). That is disaster.
How do you assess the attitude of President Jonathan in the whole process?
I am not surprised at the attitude of President Jonathan irrespective of the fact that he is from the Niger Delta. The interest of the Federal Government in Ogoni is our oil and not the welfare of the people. The pollution in Ogoni land was not something they didn’t know; they knew that the environment was highly polluted.
The killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa was not something done accidentally; the government deliberately killed him to have access to Ogoni land. In their thinking, Ogoni land should be an oil field; no human being should live there.
That is why I said I am not surprised. In fact, if there is a way the Federal Government will pump more toxic into Ogoni, they will do that because they do not have feelings for the Ogoni people.
In the first place, President Jonathan was never a willing candidate; he didn’t plan to become a president of this country; he was imposed on Nigerians. He who pays the piper dictates the tune. Those that imposed him in Nigeria are beating the drum for him and he is dancing to it.
That was why even when we had the heavy spill in Bayelsa State recently, Jonathan did not bother about it. In the (2010) spill in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama almost relocated his office to that place; he was there everyday to ensure they cleaned up the mess.
In Ogoni, the people are not living well: no potable water, no good health yet our president does not bother to consider that he is from the region. By reason of the (UNEP) report, it means every food eaten in Ogoni is poisoned; so, everything from that land is poisoned.
The little things the people use, as means of livelihood, are no more: the periwinkle is gone. Everything we eat and drink is bought in Ogoni land; the only thing we are not buying is the poisoned air.
Are you worried about the delay in the implementation of the report?
You see, the outcome of the report did not favour the government; the report took the Federal Government by surprise. UNEP actually released an earlier report that allocated 10 percent blame to the government and 90 percent to the community people but the Ogoni Solidarity Forum, through Social Action, my organisation, took up some actions against them and disowned that report, as not the truth about what was on ground in Ogoni land.
Therefore, it was difficult to come out with the actual result because from the date we did the protest, it took them one year to release the ‘fairly’ report we are talking about today. I said fairly because some things were omitted, like the Goye community where no human being is living today due to the level of degradation in the area. If that community is not mentioned once in that report, then it was manipulated.
SO far, has there been any effort by government towards assisting the people to a better condition of living?
Well, I will send you the pictures of three tankers the state government donated to supply water to over one million Ogoni people. The tankers supplied water for about two months and stopped. I wonder how three tankers will serve water to over one million Ogoni people!
If I take you to Ogoni land and you fetch water from the well, you will see oil on it but that is what the Ogoni have been using; they drink it because they are thirsty but unfortunately, they do not have a government, whether local, state or federal that cares about the people; they are not responsible to the people.
Imagine the amount of money that is coming into Rivers State; yet, the people cannot be helped! It’s really heartbreaking because the more you look, the less you see. It is something that is so annoying and that is why we are saying they should leave us alone.
Was that what prompted the self-determination declaration in Ogoni?
If you look at the situation in Ogoni, it is really annoying because the once vibrant economy of the people is destroyed. There is no life in Ogoni anymore. So, the situation in Ogoni could have been part of the self-declaration in the land.
Ogoni cannot be isolated in Nigeria as a country but what is happening in our country today is not what one can talk about. We no longer have a country. We have a president who is sitting in his comfort zone in Aso Rock while people are being killed in churches and he does not care. He keeps telling us that ‘we are on top of the situation,’ but still, Nigerians continue to die on daily basis.
That shows we do not have a country anymore. So, to your tent, Oh Israel! Unfortunately, the Ogoni are going back to their homes with nothing because their oil has been taken away. I think that the helpless situation in Ogoni is part of the reasons we say we want to stay on our own and Nigeria should expect more of that from other ethnic nationalities.
Nigeria is a concoction; it’s a country that people were forced to come together; there was no agreement in coming together. This is exactly what led to the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa because Ken was creating awareness among the people of the Niger Delta, saying, your environment was being destroyed, things were being stolen from you; you have to rise up.
But the oil companies and the Federal Government said he was creating awareness that would stop them from taking oil from the land and so, they killed him to serve as an example to other people who may come up to do what he did.
Unfortunately, some of the people that were used forgot that the Ogoni have the same problem. When they were killing Ken and other Ogoni indigenes, they said it’s an Ogoni issue but when Obasanjo started bombing Odi, they said it was a Niger Delta problem. Thus, it is complex situation.
What is responsible for the delay in the implementation of the UNEP report?
The delay is political because coming to accept the blame and cleaning up Ogoni land would mean ‘yes’ to the Federal Government and Shell that they polluted our environment. It would mean that they are guilty because Shell has always said that what they are doing is charity work in Ogoni.
Secondly, we live in a country where nothing works. You have the Ministry of Education, but do you have education? You have the Ministry of Power, but do you have power? Tony Anenih allegedly spent N300 billion to construct roads as the then Minister of Works, but did you see any road? Are they not the roads that people are dying everyday?
For the UNEP report to indicate that the clean-up in the area is something that will take 35 years is something that should wake up even the sleeping dog. But it is saddening that all the parties are sleeping.
However, the Ogoni are tired and we want to take our destiny in our hands. The Ogoni will never allow the Federal Government and Shell to commence oil production in our land anymore. It will never happen until they begin to look at the Ogoni Bill of Rights and apologise to our people for all they had done. So, our destiny is in our hands and we are beginning to take hold if it.
Source: OgoniNews
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