The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and other stakeholders have called for more accountability in the oil-rich Niger Delta for the people to truly feel the impact of the wealth in the region.
They urged the federal government to put in place a legal framework that would force oil companies to provide healthy environment instead of concentrating on exploration.
The recommendations were made at an interactive session on implementing reforms for promoting transparency and accountability in the management of public resources held on Wednesday in Lagos with particular focus on the Niger Delta.
It was organised by SERAP with support from the Ford Foundation and brought together senior executive members of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), members of the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE), chiefs, community/religious leaders of the Niger Delta region and members of the diplomatic community.
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The participants discussed SERAP’s recent report titled, “We are all vulnerable: How lack of transparency and accountability is fuelling human rights violation in the Niger Delta”.
A lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Dr Bunmi Afinowi, who spoke on the topic, said, “There is no reason the Niger Delta region, which produced much of the resources on which the country is dependent, should be poor and the rights of the people violated by oil and gas companies.”
On his part, the Director General, Bureau of Public Service Reform, Dr Dasuki Arabi, said over time various administrations in the country had put in place different measures to develop the Niger Delta, including establishment of a whole ministry, NDDC and the amnesty programme.
SERAP’s Deputy Director, Mr Kolawole Oluwadare, urged the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to demonstrate the political will to fight corruption by going after the “big fish” in government circles.
