THE Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, under the Federal Ministry of Environment, was charged with the responsibility “to ensure full environmental recovery and restoration of Ogoni ecosystem for Ogoni people and other impacted communities. Six years down the line, Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt, reports that while the roadmap to that clean-up is floundering, the communities are still reeling in pain and anguish over the damage done to their lives and ecosystem

The Ogonis are a people in the Rivers South-east senatorial district of Rivers State. With its over 2 million residents in the Niger Delta community, their running battles with oil spill and its attendant environmental consequences have negatively affected Ogoniland.

According to records, four years before Nigerian Independence, Royal Dutch/Shell, in collaboration with the British government, found a commercially viable oil field on the Niger Delta and began oil production in 1958.

In a 15-year period from 1976 to 1991 there were reportedly 2,976 oil spills of about 2.1 million barrels of oil in Ogoniland, accounting for about 40 per cent of the total oil spills of the Royal Dutch/Shell company worldwide.

In Ogoni, virtually all the oil wells operated by multi-national companies commonly experience spillage. The oil wells, the pipelines and other facilities like manifold routinely spill crude petroleum substances in large scale and at disturbing frequencies.

The ownership of these wells, pipelines, and related facilities are generally spread among Shell Petroleum Development Company, (SPDC), the Petroleum Pipelines Marketing Company, (PPMC), the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC), and the Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR). Often, the incidents of spillage are traced to sabotage or equipment failure.

Consequences

Because of oil spills, oil flaring, and waste discharge, the soil is no longer viable for agriculture. Furthermore, in many areas that seemed to be unaffected, groundwater was found to have high levels of hydrocarbons or were contaminated with benzene, a carcinogen, at 900 levels above WHO guidelines.

Fanfare about Cleanup

So in 2016, when the federal government made a fanfare of its agenda for a cleanup of oil spillage in Ogoni, it bore the marks of a major media event. President Muhammadu Buhari promoted the planned event with uncharacteristic energy, promising that the project was a priority. The media was awash with commentaries that highlighted the event as a departure from previous government’s marking a milestone for the new administration. A date was set and communities across Ogoni were agog in anticipation.

A few days to the scheduled date, President Buhari flew out of the country obliging Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to flag off the event. The locals turned up jubilant, offering praises to the government. In the euphoria of the moment, the federal government set up the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, (HYPREP), under the Federal Ministry of Environment, charged with the responsibility “to ensure full environmental recovery and restoration of Ogoni ecosystem for Ogoni people and other impacted communities.”

Initial Report

Prior to the clean-up attempts, the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) initiated the investigation and assessment of the situation in Ogoni. The exercise lasted about 18 months with its report released to the federal government on August 4, 2011. The report marked a watershed in charting a roadmap to addressing the perennial Ogoni environmental disasters.

For instance, the report established that commercial oil activities in the manner and at the scale it was going presented an existential threat to indigenous communities particularly in respect to sustainable livelihoods from natural and environmental ecosystem. It pointed to stark environmental disasters on land, aquatic life, and the mangroves.

All these, according to the report, were polluted, completely destroyed, or altogether blighted. Disconnected from the natural resources such as farmlands, fishing areas, and agencies for production of herbal remedies, the indigenous people of oil-bearing communities despaired and turned restive.

The report recommended a restoration of the environment, remediation of the land, including the construction of integrated soil management centre for excavation and treatment of soil. It called for a comprehensive health audit on the indigenous people. It further recommended for alternative means of livelihood for the people as well as training for new skills for the youths. Several communities spanning four Local Government Areas, including Eleme, Gokana, Khana, and Tai in Rivers state find themselves in this situation.

Floundering Implementation

Expectedly, HYPREP was called upon to implement the key recommendations of the UNEP report. The lingering, even cruel environmental neglects in the oil rich Niger Delta had given rise to the prolonged anti government militancy of the youths. At the onset of the project, over 21 contractors were selected for different levels of the clean up. But rather than douse tension, the very presence of the contractors seems to have engineered a contrary emotion in Ogoni communities. Excitement and jubilation that heralded the flag off ceremony petered out so dramatically.

Activities of contractors at the clean-up sites became subjects of renewed acrimony and agitation by the communities.

For instance, across the Ogoni communities, many people do not seem to have any confidence in the technical competence of the contractors. Ostensibly, enormous funds had already been expended on the projects by government but the communities insist they have not seen any pronounced change in their condition. The air did not offer them a fresh breath, the blighted mangrove vegetation did not show new life, the water in the streams did not wash away the oil coating on its surface neither did the soil return offer any promise of fertility.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/ogoni-oil-spill-floundering-clean-up-roadmap-and-tales-of-anguish-of-oil-communities/