Hope, despair, suspicion greeted the Senate Committee on Environment headed by Senator Oluremi Tinubu, in Ogoni land last Monday as the team stormed the area on a fact-finding mission.
The vexed issues arising from the planned cleanup of Ogoni swamps, creeks, streams, rivers, farmlands, and wells severely devastated by oil spills, informed the visit.
The cleanup was recommended by the United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP, in a report released by the multilateral agency on August 4, 2011 during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
In pursuance of its oversight functions and the need to thoroughly investigate the extent of damage as well as feel the pulse of stakeholders, the committee toured round some of the affected sites.
The committee members also came with the intention to put at the doorsteps of the stakeholders the opportunity to air their disposition on the cleanup exercise given their growing despair over what they perceived as the slow pace of the Federal Government and its coordinating agency, the Hydrocarbon Remediation Project, HYPREP, at fulfilling the dreams of the people of Ogoniland.
Other members of the visiting environment committee include Senators Suleiman Hunkuyi; Foster Ogola; Avwal Bukar Ibrahim, and Magnus Abe, the Senator representing Rivers South East Senatorial District, an indigene of Ogoni, from Bera in Gokana Local Government Area.
According to the Chairman of the committee, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, who raised the hope of the people, the Senate would ensure the judicious use of the money budgeted for Ogoni clean up, and the proper cleaning of the land.
She also promised that the Senate would also ensure that indigenes would be fully involved in the cleanup of their land.
Senator Tinubu said: “We are concerned about these issues. We will use face masks when we get to the location. Face masks will draw attention to the message to the world on the essence of the cleanup.
She frankly told the people: “We are here on an oversight and investigative visit. We are here to see the devastated sites for ourselves.
We are here to ensure that monies appropriated for in the 2018 budget to further the clean-up exercise will be used for what it was appropriated for.
“I ask the people of Ogoni to be peaceful and united. No one will feel safe to participate in the cleanup if the area is not safe. I also implore the Ogonis to stop destroying their environment.
The Senate does not discuss issues that are in court. Some Ogonis are in court over the cleanup. As long as these cases are still in court, there is not much that the federal government can do,” she informed.
She continued: “No contract has been awarded to any company for the cleanup because it is important to secure the services of companies that have the expertise to do the job.”
The Ogonis are clamouring for the need to be included in the clean-up. However, no clean-up can take off without the involvement of the Ogonis, but that will only occur when companies with the required technical expertise have been contracted.
She then assured the people of Ogoni saying: “Senator Abe is a member of the committee. He knows what to do. He can send or sponsor a bill or move a motion on the floor of the Senate and he can be assured that we will support him.
We are committed to the Ogoni cleanup and we will not spare any genuine effort to ensure that the cleanup is accomplished.”
On his own part, the Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Dr. Marvin Dekil, stated that the agency has started the selection of companies that would be involved in the setting up of emergency facilities for the cleaning of oil impacted areas.
The project coordinator had always insisted that the cleanup exercise has actually commenced several months before, but the people of Ogoni on the other hand had continued to insist that there was nothing on ground to show that the exercise, flagged off by the federal government since June 2, had actually commenced.
The Minister of Environment, Usman Jubri, who was represented by Peter Irabor, assured the people of Ogoni that the cleanup of the land would be accomplished by the federal government.
He explained: “The restoration of the environment would be a long process. But we cannot go forward if the people of Ogoni continue to pour crude oil into the water.
As far as that exercise continues, we will not go forward. We must tell ourselves the truth. The people of Ogoni should be patient because the process will be implemented.”
A member of the Governing Board of the Ogoni Cleanup exercise, Dr. Peter Medee, President of KAGOTE, a group of Ogoni elites, also complained of the slow pace of the environmental cleanup of Ogoniland.
He appealed to the Senate Committee on Environment to do all it could to get the Federal Government working in conjunction with the National Assembly to give waivers to the governing board as regards the rigid enforcement of the Public Procurement Act.
“The slow pace of the cleanup exercise is largely due to the bureaucratic bottle neck associated with the activities of the governing board and financial activities that are associated with the cleanup.
Even a bottle of pure water that we drink during our meetings is accounted and budgeted for. We assure the people of Ogoni that we will account for every kobo that we spend.
“One of the major problems we had was selecting the bank that will act as the custodian of the funds released for the cleanup exercise.
We realized that none of our domestic banks had the amount of deposit needed to ensure the fund is safe on the strength of insurance. So, we chose a foreign bank, Standard Chartered Bank,” he said.
Athough Dr. Medee expressed reservations on the slow pace of the cleanup, he insisted that it was important to build sustainable structures for the exercise so that it can be sustained.
“We want to assure Ogonis that no kobo would be missing. The clean-up will be implemented and Ogonis will be happy. We need to erect structures that will sustain the cleanup for as long as the cleanup takes.”
Governor Wike skeptical
However the governor of Rivers State, Barrister Nyesom Wike, dismissed the intentions of the Federal Government to cleanup the land as a political game. He told the committee members during their courtesy visit to Government House, that the Federal Government was not serious about the cleanup of Ogoniland.
The governor stated that Ogoni cleanup programme remained a political project aimed at attaining political mileage and that the people of Rivers State were tired of procrastination in relation to the execution of the exercise.
Wike declared: “The Federal Government is not serious about the cleanup of Ogoniland. We are tired of telling our people that the project will start next year.
Let it not be a political project. Look at the North East, a commission was established and $1Billion released,” he stated.
The Rivers State governor said that the devastation of Ogoniland has impoverished the people by destroying their farmlands and fishing waters, regretting that as a state that produced the wealth of the nation, Rivers State had no single pliable Federal Road.
Also speaking during the committee’s visit to Tai, was the Paramount ruler of the community, His Royal Majesty Godwin K. Giniwa, the Gbenemene Tai and the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Traditional Rulers, who expressed happiness about the cleanup, but said the exercise was too slow.
The Gbenemene Tai told members of the Senate Committee on Environment, at his palace in Okorokoro in Tai, “We commend President Mohammadu Buhari for accepting the UNEP Report and actually approving the flag off, but he should ask those that are in charge of the cleanup to act fast. Our people are worried.”
The traditional ruler however appealed to the youths of Ogoni to cooperate with those that would be involved in the cleanup of Ogoni. He stressed: “Let there be peace in Ogoniland during the period of the cleanup exercise. Those that will be coming to participate in the cleanup won’t be able to do anything if there is no peace in the land.”
The President of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, also joined other stakeholders to appeal to the Federal Government to “remove undue bureaucratic bottlenecks so that the cleanup can move beyond where it is now.” He then called for peace and unity amongst Ogonis to facilitate the exercise.
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