Executive Director of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, has lamented that from the way and manner that the federal government is handling the issue of the cleanup of Ogoni land it is obvious that much still needs to be done.
He was responding to enquiries on the recent moves initiated by the government to address the issue.
“The clean-up is a welcome development, likewise the inauguration of the committees, the governing councils and the board of trustees are welcome developments.
“They have been long anticipated; we have campaigned for it and we requested for it. So, it is a good thing.
“But we are concerned that even though there is a level of political will there is no much commitment from what we are seeing.
“Since their electioneering campaign and the pledge to clean up Ogoni land this is coming almost five years after the UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme) report was submitted on August 4, 2011.
“Government is a continuum but for the fact that past governments swept the issue under the carpet and this present government is resuscitating it shows a new wind of change in environmental issues”, he stated.
However, he lamented that the change is not driven structurally and systematically.
“What we expected is that by now the institutional framework, apart from the board of trustees that have just been put in place, the policy direction that shouldn’t safeguard the framework is not there.
“There is a gazette that is in the making. It has not been made public. Civil society has not made input; the society has not made input.
“So, we don’t even know what is in the gazette. We want that legal framework to be in the public domain”, he enthused.
Ojo said that another issue that is worrisome about the Ogoniland cleanup deal is that there is no timeline and work plan for the project.
“These are serious lapses,” he intoned.
He views the inclusion of multinational oil concern, Shell Petroleum Development Company as a member of the governing council of the Ogoniland cleanup project as a serious infraction.
