The federal government has broken its three-year silence on the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report, saying it would now expedite action in its implementation. Senior Correspondent, ISHAYA IBRAHIM, writes on insinuations that this may be another vote-seeking gimmick, as the 2015 election year approaches.
Celestine Akpobari
Recently, the federal government made a surprise pronouncement on the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland, three years after it was released.
UNEP had, in a report on August 4, 2011, shown that pollution from over 50 years of oil operations in Ogoniland, Rivers State, has destroyed the ecosystem of the area.
If contaminated drinking water, land, creeks and other part of the ecosystem such as mangroves are to be brought back to full productive health, the Nigerian government and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) must commit $1 billion for a clean-up of the environment, UNEP said.
But the federal government kept a deafening silence on the report; prompting activists from the region to threaten mother of all battles if the report was not implemented on or before August 4 this year, the third anniversary of the report.
“We will do something stupid very soon. August 4 is the third anniversary of the release of that report, and if they have not started implementing the UNEP report before that day, there will be no oil export in this country again. Don’t forget that all the oil produced in the Niger Delta pass through Ogoni to Bonny for export. We will take over the pipeline. There will be no export. We want the worst to happen. They (federal government) should be prepared to dig mass grave to bury everybody. We have decided and that is the way it is going to be,” one of the leaders of Ogoni, Celestine Akpobari, had told TheNiche in an interview before August.
Akpobari asserted that the reason the federal government did not take the UNEP report serious was because the president, who incidentally hails from the Niger Delta, had little regard for them.
“The president is just petty, very petty. I imagine him saying – Why are the Ogoni people making noise? Are they the only people that have bad environment? Don’t we have bad environment too? – as if the Ogoni would have fought for them. We fought for ourselves and the UN intervened. What is difficult in bringing $1 billion take-off grant? This is money they give their girlfriends; all these people that have been stealing billions of subsidy money and yet they don’t supply the fuel. He is just too petty,” he had said.
Though the August 4 date has come and gone without any incident, the federal government has now decided to do something – not because it was threatened, or out of altruistic motivation – to avoid the election consequence, analysts say.
The Ogoni have a population of more than one million people who are resident in Rivers State. Their voting population, already disgruntled with the PDP over the neglect of their environment, is enough to cause electoral upset for the party in Rivers and at the centre if President Jonathan decides to contest the 2015 poll.
An Ogoni leader, Mmuen Kpagane, said the sudden government interest in the UNEP report is a ploy to corner electoral victory for the PDP ahead of the 2015 election.
According to him, it was amazing that the federal government, which all the while has shown lack of interest on the report, suddenly decided to do something, simply because election is drawing close.
“It is in the nature of government in sub-Sahara Africa to pretend to want to do something when election is close. We are watching,” he said.
On August 8, the government admitted that it made a mistake in the implementation of the report, and assured that it would make up for the lost grounds.
It said this at Bori, the traditional headquarters of the Ogoni, during a one-day consultative meeting with the people.
The Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, said the federal government was serious in its concern and commitment to the implementation of the UNEP report.
Represented by Danladi Kifasi, permanent secretary in the ministry, she said the Hydrocarbons Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP), which was established to implement the report, had handled some transitional phase of the cleaning up, but had not achieved the major objective of remediation of the environment.
“While HYPREP has implemented some of the transitional phase objectives as recommended in the report, government recognises and is very mindful that the programme has not achieved its full objectives as envisioned by this administration,” she said.
She assured the people that the money for the implementation of environmental clean-up of Ogoniland was ready.
“Government is mindful that funds meant for the remediation and restoration activities of Ogoniland are used for that purpose. The hope is that very soon, we shall be working with the UN, Ogoni communities and relevant Nigerian agencies to pool our collective knowledge and construct a roadmap to deliver a comprehensive remediation programme with a focus on immediate delivery and restitution,” she said.