CSO decries ‘deliberate frustration’ of Ogoni clean-up

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has decried the deliberate effort of key players to frustrate the clean-up of the Ogoni oil spill. 

The Executive Director of the organisation Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, said in a paper that it was regrettable that the cleanup exercise flagged off in June 2016 by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, had been enmeshed in unnecessary controversies and delays by those that should be at the front of ensuring the success of the project.

While noting that the exercise lacked some very key ingredients like structures such as the governing council, the board of trustees and the management of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) that were expected to drive the clean-up process, he said they had also expressed worry that the UNEP ‘Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland’ report had recommended that the government and Shell contribute $1 billion over a five-year period to undertake the clean-up.

He said, the government’s body language did not show it was committed to committing any tangible sum to the process nor compelling Shell to do same.  

“Two years on, we can see that even though we now have a governing council, the polluter was invited to sit in their midst and continues to call the shots and slow the processes. No tangible sum has been committed to the clean up as we speak,” Ojo said.

He lament that the same government that has failed to make contributions to the clean-up fund save for the $10 million start up fund it gave to HYPREP to commence its activities is ready to pump $1 billion into an insurgency war that it claimed had been “technically” won.