How could we have missed a report so significant? The report implies plainly that the executed Ogoniland activists, specifically Ken Saro Wiwa, were justified in engaging in whatever means to condemn the environmental havoc inflicted on Ogoniland by the oil companies, specifically Shell – yes the Shell.
The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) recently published its Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, and left much of the conscientious world agape over the fact that Nigeria “Paid a high price” for the “development” that oil brought to the country. The report commissioned by the Federal Government revealed that “oil contamination in Ogoniland is widespread and severely impacting many components of the environment. Even though the oil industry is no longer active in Ogoniland, oil spills continue to occur with alarming regularity. The Ogoni people live with this pollution every day.
As Ogoniland has high rainfall, any delay in cleaning up an oil spill leads to oil being washed away, traversing farmland and almost ending up in the creeks. When oil reaches the root zone, crops and other plants begin to experience stress and can die, and this is a routine observation in Ogoniland. At one site, Ejama-Ebubu in Eleme local government area (LGA), the study found heavy contamination present 40 years after an oil spill occurred, despite repeated clean-up attempts. The assessment found that overlapping authorities and responsibilities between ministries and a lack of resources within key agencies has serious implications for environmental management on-the-ground, including enforcement.
Remote sensing revealed the rapid proliferation in the past two years of artisanal refining, whereby crude oil is distilled in makeshift facilities. The study found that this illegal activity is endangering lives and causing pockets of environmental devastation in Ogoniland and neighbouring areas”.
Destroyed in Ogoniland is the vegetation, resulting from contamination of the soil, and the ground water. The surface water now contains hydrocarbon, forcing fish to leave the polluted areas in search of cleaner water. Of course this destroys a whole community’s livelihood.
“The wetlands around Ogoniland is highly degraded and facing disintegration”, the damning report concluded. Quite expectedly, UNEP faulted the oil industry practices in Nigeria. What can one expect? With the country’s all pervading corruption the worst case scenario has remained the norm.
The oil spills mainly by Shell which has disposed of its Nigerian oil assets including its onshore oil blocks have been a source of concern in the extent to which the damage has gone to impoverish and dislocate the simple and helpless folk. According to estimates compiled by the UN experts, the oil spills which have occurred in the hands of Shell successively over 50 years will cost over $1bn dollars to clear up. It is estimated also that such an exercise would take 25-30 years to clean up and restore the environment. Shell defends itself by pointing that much of the spillage happened was due to sabotage, theft and illegal distilling of crude oil.
Watching US President Barak Obama on cleaned up sandy beaches in 2009, I had admired the tenacity with which the American President confronted the environmental disaster of the Gulf of Mexico Deep Water Horizon spillage and in June 2010, I wrote in this column commending the lessons Obama had shown to our own President Goodluck Jonathan.
In writing the column at the time, I was shocked to learn the whole incident of the Gulf of Mexico, was child’s play compared to what has been happening everyday in the Niger Delta. The UNEP report has said that the environmental restoration of Ogoniland “could prove to be the world’s most wide ranging and long term oil cleanup ever undertaken”
It is cheering news that President Goodluck Jonathan is on the good foot about implementing the UNEP recommendations. It certainly serves us better that Petroleum Minister Diezani Allison-Madueke well familiar with the report and recommendations is very much around to see to the implementation of the detailed solutions offered. Needless to say, the world is watching, and one hopes that the implementation will be “unNigerian” – a sad term to use.
One may for now underscore the plea by Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People that the direct victims of the half a century mishap, be consulted in order to address the social benefits of the clear up programme, and ameliorate the dire poverty and hopelessness in Ogoniland. To quote Ken Saro Wiwa’s famous one-liner, “We all stand before history”, that we have moved one inch towards attaining the cause he fought and was hanged for. This will make this great man of convenience smile from his heavenly abode.
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201207180798.html
This article is a republication as part of our Nov. 10th special editions to remember Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni8