A pro-Ogoni group, operating under the aegis of Ken Saro Wiwa Associates (KSWA) has strongly condemned and rejected an alleged plan by the Minister of Environment, Alhaji Usman Jubril, to deploy 3,000 soldiers to Ogoniland for the cleanup exercise of the area.
The position of the group was made known by its National Coordinator, Chief Gani Topba, in a chat with newsmen in Port Harcourt yesterday.
Chief Topba said that deploying soldiers to protect the area during the clean up exercise might lead to serious crisis in Ogoniland.
The National Coordinator said: “We are not in Iraq so we don’t need that kind of military presence for the project. Instead of deploying the military to Ogoni, the Minister should focus on the basic necessities for the people such as the provision of portable water.
“You have not done that and you want to put in that kind of money in security and processes to the contract that have been awarded,” he cried out.
Chief Topba also said that the process of awarding the contract for the Ogoni cleanup was an issue which, he claimed, had not been cleared up with the people of Ogoni.
He asserted: “If the project is owned by the people, the people will secure the project. What they are about to do is to find a way to invite crisis in Ogoniland so that they will take the whole money and run away.”
He called on the federal government to immediately advise the Minister of Environment to drop the proposal.
The Ken Saro Wiwa Associates is an international, non-violent organisation founded in 2013 by Kenule Bornale Saro Wiwa (jnr) and Chief Gani Topba to immortalise and protect human and peoples’ rights, the legacies of the late Ken Saro Wiwa, as well as to improve the environment as a valuable asset for the people of Ogoni, among other objectives.
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