The clean-up of Ogoniland, Rivers State has begun. Port Harcourt Bureau Chief BISI OLANIYI examines what this exercise means to the country
President Muhammadu Buhari has received accolades from stakeholders for kicking off the clean-up of Ogoniland, Rivers State. They have also said the Ogoni exercise must be the spring board to the general clean up of the Niger Delta.
According to the Director Administration and Corporate Accountability of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Akinbode Oluwafemi, Ogoni must be a footpath to the cleaning of the region.
Oluwafemi: “ We are happy about what has happened today, but beyond this, we must ensure that the general clean-up of the entire region should begin. This is justice for the people of Niger Delta.”
Stakeholders also insist that the implementation of the report must include timelines which must define progress.
According to ERA/FoEN Director, Uyi-Ojo:”In as much as the president revealed that structures would be set up for the immediate implementation of the report, no definite timelines were set for these structures to be in place to commence work.”
He also said the government must strengthen oversight bodies, such as the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), to effectively monitor oil spillage and hold oil majors to account.
ERA/FoEN also want the government to incorporate civil society organisations into the Governing Council of the implementation committee and actively engage the people of the region during the clean-up.
However, it may not be time to click the glass as the UNEP Report indicates that the restoration of Ogoni land will take between 25-30 years during which no new spillage must occur.
Minster of Environment Hajia Amina Mohammed said the government is aware of the challenges and working towards resolving them. “You’re not going to fix it in few years, no matter what technology you have. You have massive areas of land. Remember I said Ogoni is going to be our starting point, the rest of the Niger Delta is also polluted in heavy ways, perhaps even more so than Ogoni land.
“Even though there have been no production in the last 20 years there are still illegal activities that again refill the pollution,” she said.
The outgoing Executive Director of UNEP, Mr. Achim Steiner, also agreed with the approach: “A clean-up and restoration effort like this cannot happen overnight. I am hopeful that the cooperation between the government of Nigeria, oil companies and the communities will result in an environmental restoration, that benefits both ecosystems and the Ogoni people of Niger Delta.”
The road to clean-up
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in 2005, appointed Rev. Fr. Matthew Hassan Kukah (now Bishop of the Catholic Church in Sokoto) as the mediator between the Ogoni people and SPDC, with one thousand petitions written against him by Ogoni people to the Vatican, but he remained undaunted.
As part of Kukah’s reconciliation process, an impartial, international agency was to be appointed to undertake an environmental assessment and supervise the clean-up of the areas damaged by the effects of oil operations in Ogoni land.
In order to put an end to the many years of neglect, pollution, marginalisation and environmental degradation in Ogoni and to adequately empower the people, in July 2006, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) received an official request from the Federal Republic of Nigeria to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the environmental and public health impacts of oil contamination in Ogoni land, together with options for remediation.
In response, the Executive Director of UNEP, Achim Steiner, deployed a high-level mission in Nigeria, in order to gain a fuller understanding of the request and the expectations of the Nigerian government.
The UNEP team had extensive discussions with various stakeholders, including the then President Obasanjo, Rivers state and local governments’ officials, especially of the four Ogoni LGAs and the management of SPDC.
UNEP team also conducted field visits to Ogoni land and met with the key Ogoni stakeholders. A series of pre-arranged, well-publicised and well-attended public meetings helped the mission to understand local community perspectives and expectations.
Following the preparatory consultations, the UN organisation presented a proposal (including workplans and budgets) to the Nigerian government in January 2007, for a two-phase project: a comprehensive environmental assessment of Ogoni land and an environmental clean-up to follow, based on the assessment and subsequent planning and decisions.
Ex-President Obasanjo agreed with the UNEP’s proposals and made two suggestions: a Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC), under the chairmanship of Bishop Matthew Kukah be formed to oversee the work and that all expenses relating to the environmental assessment by UNEP should be borne by SPDC, under the “polluter pays” principle, with the suggestions agreed to by all parties.
The team of environmentalists also made it clear that the assessment would be completely independent and was also accepted by all the parties.
While the project was approved in 2007, administrative delays meant that fieldwork could not start until late 2009. Fieldwork and laboratory analyses were completed in January 2011. The study resulted in tens of thousands of analyses and photographs, all illustrative of the environmental situation in Ogoni land.
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