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By Joel Anekwe
Some civil society organisations in Rivers State have asked for the establishment of a civil society desk at the headquarters of the Hydrocarbon Pollution and Remediation Project (HYPREP) in Port Harcourt.
This they said would enhance easy access by the civil societies and other citizens to up-to-date information on the activities of HYPREP in relation to the clean-up exercise, and therefore solve the problem of misinformation and misconception that has plagued the Ogoni clean-up exercise.
Speaking at a technical session held in Port Harcourt on ‘HYPREP – CSO Desk for Partnership Building,’ Salaudeen Hashim, executive director, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) argued that the bright sides of a CSO Desk within HYPREP by far outweighs the dark sides.
He said such a desk would provide for consistent communication and interface, adding that “miscommunication, misconception would be minimised. It will also help the CSOs to be structured in their engagement with HYPREP.”
Hashim explained that the UNEP report that recommended for the clean-up stipulates that CSO desk was very important in the clean-up exercise, adding that it would solve the problem of different opinions and understanding of the clean-up process, which absence had led to misinformation, miscommunication and misconception that has bogged the programme these many years.
According to the CISLAC director, the CSO Desk would help civil society organisations not to continue playing catch up with HYPREP, but get first-hand information from the programme and help facilitate the process of debriefing by CSO members inside the board of HYPREP.
Also speaking, right activist, Celestine Akpobari, expressed support for the establishment of the CSO desk in HYPREP for CSOs to effectively carry out their roles as stipulated by the UNEP report, while condemning the militarisation of every institution that is established in the Niger Delta.
He said: “We worked so hard to make sure we have what we call HYPREP today. So it will not be fair that HYPREP has taken off, civil society is not playing vital role. For them to effectively carryout those roles there’s need to have a civil society desk in there because every institution that is established in the Niger Delta tend to wear a military face.
“HYPREP is not less a community-oriented programme than the NDDC. NDDC came because of the same community agitation and so because of lack of understanding from our people we play into the hands of these people, making them to police the place, making it hard for people to gain access to them.
“The story of HYPREP is not different from what NDDC has gone through. There are times when workers were harassed and even kidnapped in the field, they had to transfer money for their freedom,” Akpobari added.
He advised HYPREP to understand that they are there for the people and for communities. “And so there is need for openness. Severally, civil society has written for meetings, for engagements and it took my intervention before the project coordinator could respond to such.
“If the civil society desk is there it means that everything that had to do with the civil society will be on the speed lane. Of course it is not easy because this thing (clean-up) has never been done anywhere in Africa, this is the first and the first time is happening. Is a learning process and do it is good for that openness so people can add their own ideas, knowledge, views that will make this all engagement perfect.
“Community people know that without the involvement of the civil society organization we won’t get the clean-up kick-started. Community people were just there, it is the civil society groups that amplified the qualities of community people,” he said.
