An NGO, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria(ERA/FoEN) has commended the Federal Government for its recent inauguration of a Governing Council and Board of Trustees for the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP).
The group made the commendation in a statement issued to the News Agency of Nigeria ( NAN), on Tuesday, in Benin.
The statement, by the group’s Executive Director, Dr Godwin Uyi-Ojo, however, urged the new HYPREP governing council to establish a Centre of Excellence for the Ogoni clean up process.
NAN recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari on March 12, inaugurated a 13-member governing council and a 10-member board of Trustees of the Ogoni Trust Fund on the HYPREP, with the Minister of Environment, Dr Mohammad Abubakar, as the Chairman of the Governing Council, and Mr Michael Nwileaghi as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees.
The NGO said: “Recall that the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria had surmised from majority of Ogonis and reports of its team of monitors around the project areas that HYPREP was not working at optimal capacity.
“The agency had almost completely derailed from the goals and objectives setout in the United Nations’ Environment Programme (UNEP) Ogoni environmental Assessment report of 2011, leading to unnecessary delays and poor remediation work, due to some unqualified contractors.
“That ERA/FoEN and its partners, Milieudefensie/Friends of the Earth Netherlands, Amnesty International and community groups, in its ground breaking report entitled: “No Cleanup, No Justice”, issued in 2020;
” Had called for the complete overhaul of the HYPREP structure, because of the lack of synergy between the operations of HYPREP and the UNEP report recommendations, on the one hand, as well as the needs of local communities in Ogoni, on the other.
“ERA/FoEN welcomes this decision of the federal government to listen to genuine voices of our people and groups monitoring the cleanup process. We hope that sufficient consultation was carried out before the new governing council and board of trustee members were appointed.
“However, ERA expects that these members have the capacity and expertise to oversee a complex and multifaceted undertaking like the Ogoni cleanup process, ” the NGO said.
ERA expressed the hope that the new board would effectively carry out its mandate in the interest of the concerned communities.
It added: “The federal government’s environmental legacy project in the last four years has been a story of misplaced priorities, politicized clean up, personal interest of board members overriding the interest of delivering a world class cleanup process and the critical need to save the lives of our people affected by environmental devastation.
“The slow pace of the clean-up and faulty procurement process are key areas that the present crop of managers should urgently address.”
“We hope the new managers would also ensure that the major pillar of the clean-up process, the establishment of the Centre of Excellence to provide capacity building for HYPREP staff and the Ogonis, and document lessons learnt for the replication of the clean-up in the entire polluted Niger Delta is restored.”
“Recall that the establishment of the Centre of Excellence was sidelined in the past four years, thereby short changing the Ogonis of the opportunity to build capacity and skills of the youths.”
The NGO also welcomed the federal government’s approval of N6 billion to ensure the provision of potable water for Ogoni communities.
“This was one of the emergency measures recommended in the UNEP Ogoni Environmental Assessment report that we expected HYPREP to pursue aggressively at the launch of the project but which it regrettably refused to do despite ERA/FoEN’s consistent advocacy about the lasting impact this would have on other aspects of the project.
“ERA/FoEN is concerned that the goodwill of the people and a lot of time has already been lost by HYPREP”, it said.
Similarly, it noted that clear milestones, workplans and key performance indicators have not been delivered by the agency, leaving their operations lacking transparency and accountability.
“ERA/FoEN calls on the federal government to ensure that the problems that bedeviled the agency in the last four years, with the award of contracts for the clean up to unqualified companies, political hangers on and members of both the governing council and board of trustees of HYPREP does not recur.
“ERA/FoEN also calls on the Federal ministry of environment and HYPREP to make the contractual terms and costs for the over N6 billion water projects public, so that local communities, civic groups and even the international community can monitor and evaluate the success of this very important and people-oriented aspect of the project adequately.”
The leadership of ERA/FoEN also called for a more inclusive and participatory project design and implementation process to ward against the short comings experienced in the last four years.
“It is critical that there is community and civil society participation in drawing up short-term and long-term workplans, key performance indicators and milestones for the next five years of the project.
“Any progress from the clean-up should be seen in the scope and quality of environmental remediation and recovery, improvement in the fishing and farming occupations and livelihoods of the Ogonis.
“ERA/FoEN calls on the federal government to urgently appoint a substantive Coordinator for HYPREP and immediately replace Prof. Philip Shokolo, the Shell nominee at the HYPREP coordination office, who presently acts as interim coordinator in the absence of a substantive coordinator.
“Shell is a major culprit in the ecocide that the Ogoni environment and society is experiencing. It is inconceivable that a Shell nominated staff that was part of the Shell operations responsible for the pollution of Ogoniland is presiding over HYPREP activities and the clean-up and remediation process, ” it said.