The failure of the government to implement emergency measures recommended before the clean up of Ogoni land has been identified as one of the factors responsible for the slow take off of the project.
This is the view of Human Rights Activist and Executive Director,Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC), Rivers, Fyneface Dumnamene, who spoke to THE WHISTLER in Abuja.
Dumnamene was in Abuja to attend the House of Representatives’ Committee on Environment hearing on the Ogoni Cleanup in Rivers State.
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Recall that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its Joint Venture Partners of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Total Exploration and Production of Nigeria (TEPNG) and Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), said it had released $360million out of the $900million required for the Ogoni land Clean-Up project.
But Fyneface alleged that the funds usually go into the hands of a few people to the detriment of the masses, hence the impoverished situation of the area despite several disbursements.
“What they do is to award contracts for the clean up and when they do, they only put money in the pocket of the big boys; leaving out the ordinary people who suppose to benefit from the money through the emergency measures.
He said that for the disbursements to also culminate in development, the relevant actors should first of all look at the deplorable state of the people in the area.
“In the process of that cleaning up, a report recommended that they commence with emergency measures implementation,” he said.
He said measures such as provision of portable drinking water as well as auditing the health of the people who have lived with pollution all their lives, will keep people in the area healthy and capable.
He also said that centers of excellence should be constructed where the skills of the people will be developed to be able to fit into the clean-up process.
Furthermore, he called for the construction of contaminated soil management center, where the soil from the polluted site will be treated into the original soil and returned back.
“These are some of those issues that are causing problems and protest in the land,” he said.
YEAC is a platform that promotes human rights; maternal health and environmental issues bordering on climate change, nonviolence and campaign against oil theft.