At last, FG raises N64.8bn for Ogoni Clean-up

…Says Clean-up project begins in 2 weeks
….MOSOP, stakeholders react
The Federal Government has said there is no going back on the Ogoni Clean-up, disclosing that it has realised a whopping sum of N64.8 billion ($180 billion) for the commencement of the project in two weeks’ time.

The Minister of State, Environment, Mr. Ibrahim Jibrin, said this on Wednesday while briefing State House Correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Jibrin said that the procurement processes have reached the final advance stage, adding that, “Yesterday (Tuesday), the Ministerial Tender Board sat to consider the submission of the procurement department of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) and 15 lots were up for grabs”.

He said: “On Friday, the governing council of the Ogoni Trust Fund will meet to ratify this and we hope by the next week, this letters will be out and the contractors will be mobilised to site.

“There are some other five lots. Because we are 21 in this first segment that are beyond the reach of the Ministerial Tender Board and the Governing Council.

So, that one will go to the Federal Executive Council. We have already written to BPP for no objection and we hope to get the no objection hopefully by next week. So, the next two weeks, those five lots will be presented to the Federal Executive Council for approval.

“I can assure you that we are on course and there is no going back on the Ogoni clean up. This is the first time that the Federal Government has put a machinery in place. No government in the last 30, 40 years of oil pollution has done what this government is doing now.

“The President made a promise in 2015. He charged us to actualise that promise, we took up the gauntlet, we put all the governance structures in place, we did the governing council, we did the Board of Trustees, we did the project coordination office and got a project coordinator to put in place.

“We have advertised in the most transparent way right from the month of March both national and international. Some of them – the Economist of London and we have gotten more than 400 companies who expressed interest.

“We shortlisted after the technical evaluation and got 183 and these the companies that were qualified to bid and pick the financials attached therein and they did that,

it has been ongoing for couple of weeks now and it has been concluded and therefore I can confidently tell you that before the end of this month, in the next week’s, there will be 21 companies that will be mobilised to site to start the work.

“You must ask whether there is funding? Yes, of course there is funding. Again, this is the first time the government has done something. Because of the confidence that the oil companies have in the government,

because of the governance structures that are put in place, the opening of the Ogoni Trust Fund was able to mobilise a $180 million from the oil companies.

“Right from the NNPC, SPDC and the ventures. They have mobilised $180 million. It is in the escrow account with the Standard Chartered Bank of London and the Board of Trustee is managing that. ”

The minister said that the Federal Government is concerned, saying that, “we can beat our chest and say that the Buhari administration has shown the way forward on this clean up exercise and we hope and pray that the people whom we are working for will have cause to laugh and smile very soon.”

In a similar development, the minister said that the Federal Executive Council has approved a memo for the ratification of the Doha Amendment of the Kyoto Protocol. This protocol, according to him, concerns the United Nations framework conventions on climate change which is a major global issue across the world now.

The Kyoto Protocol was crafted in 2004 and Nigeria is a party to that. The initial period of commitment of the protocol was from 2008-2012.

The new segment now is from 2013-2020. The essence of this protocol is to commit advanced countries or developed countries that are mostly industrialised and are at the forefront of the production of gaseous emission which is harmful to the environment, which is leading to climate change and therefore causing global problem environmentally.

“While they emit more than we the developing nations, that was why the world came together to look at this issues and the developed nations are compelled to take responsibility for their action.

“The Doha Amendment of the Kyoto Protocol is essentially to get developed nations who are industrialised, who are leading production of gaseous materials into the atmosphere to take responsibility and to assist countries like Nigeria who are developing and who are not producing any significant emission but are suffering the consequences. We are all aware of flooding that we experienced this year and this has been going since 2012”.

Jibril noted that benefits Nigeria stands to gain from the Doha Amendment of the Kyoto Protocol is that, “once the amendment is ratified as we want it to be, there will be access to financial assistance which will help in motivating and adapting to impact of climate change.”

He added that the second benefit will be access to technology and capacity building and there will also be networking with other nations and organisations who are more advanced and can be of help to us as a country and lastly, continuation of flexible mechanisms and contribution to global efforts as no one country has the solution for this problem alone.

He said that the idea is to team up and then get the developing countries to be assisted effectively.

According to the Environment minister, “it is in our own interest to get this agreement ratified which we have done today and the next stage will be for the Attorney General of the Federation to provide the instrument of ratification which will be signed later by Mr. President and be deposited at the United Nations in New York”.

Meanwhile, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has stated that it welcomes the commencement of the much trumpeted clean up of Ogoni land by the Federal Government.

In a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Fort-Harcourt, MOSOP President, Mr. Psaro Pyagbara, said the plans by the Federal Government to commence the United Nations (UN) recommended clean up in two weeks’ time was a welcome development because MOSOP had earlier given the Federal Government a deadline to do or face the people’s wrath.

He said: “if the Federal Government say that in the next two weeks they’re going to commence the clean-up, I think that will be welcomed. We said on November 10, 2018 that if nothing happens by the end of November, then our communities will no longer accept any excuse any more. So, if they say the next two weeks that would be the end of the month.”

He however expressed doubts over the funds said to have been earmarked for the commencement exercise. “I don’t know whether that figure is correct because what UNEP recommended for the first five years was $1billion and $1billionat the current exchange rate in Nigeria is more than N600billion,” he said.

Pyagbara, who is also on the board of HYPREP, the Federal Government clean-up agency and the Ogoni Clean Up Trust Fund, further explained that based on negotiations between the Federal Government, Shell and Ogoni communities, the oil industry,

including NNPC agreed to do a $200 million Dollars on annual basis as their contribution and that so far they have paid a total of $117 million dollars into the Ogoni Trust Fund.

But to Mr. Nsuke Fegalo, MOSOP Publicity Secretary, the clean-up exercise is a fluke and that if it commences, it will commence on a very faulty foundation.

“I think it is just for them to award contracts to themselves because how can you commence the clean up when the soil testing facility is not yet in place?” he asked.