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By Joel Anekwe
An environmental activist and director, Mother of the Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey has said that the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) is the best option to carry out the cleanup of Ogoniland as recommended by the United Nation’s Environmental Programme (UNEP).
He made the clarification against the backdrop of claims at some quarters that HYPREP is not ready or has the capacity to carry out the cleanup of Ogoniland as recommended by the United Nation’s Environmental Programme (UNEP).
Acknowledging that the UNEP had recommended the establishment of the Ogoni Restoration Agency he noted that the cleanup of Ogoniland was only a seed for the wider cleanup of the entire Niger Delta area affected by pollution, hence the establishment of HYPREP by the Federal Government.
Speaking to journalists at Bodo, Gokana local government area after visiting some oil impacted sites the Director, Mother of the Earth Foundation (HOMEF) stated that though UNEP recommended the establishment of the Ogoni Restoration Agency for the cleanup of Ogoniland, it was left for government to accept what would work better because the cleanup would not just stop at Ogoni but extend to other parts of the region also heavily polluted as Ogoniland.
He said: “I don’t believe that HYPREP should be scrapped. HYPREP is a good idea, it is the best that we have. We can’t afford to go back to square one because if you scrap HYPREP and abort the Ogoni cleanup, all of us might as well just go home and say okay, we are finished”.
He went on: ” this is the lifeline we have and have to do all we can to ensure that HYPREP operates the way it ought to operate, hold them accountable for everything make sure that this the need to be done are done and have good basis to expand the work to other parts of the Niger Delta “.
The 2012 Rafto Prize award winner who visited impacted sites at Goi community which was sacked by the 2004-2005 spill and Bodo in Gokana local government of Rivers State expressed “extreme sadness” that the spill in the areas was being made worse by the Joint Military Task Force which burn boats, badges and stolen oil products on the shores of the river.
“This has made me very sad because we have to find a better way of handling this kind of things. When a boat is caught with stolen products you don’t have to set it on fire. You can just keep the boat somewhere and dispose the products in a way that is safe. But the continuous burning of either illegal refineries or stolen crude or barges and just pouring that into the environment compounds the problem and really makes it difficult to see the way out of the mess”, he stated.
He also said that there has been some level of action in the cleanup process countering “no progress report of ERA on the exercise for over seven years the cleanup was recommended.
Bassey, who is also a member of the Governing Board of HYPREP said; “I think right now, we are seeing both talk and actions and we can never stop talking about the cleanup because it is a learning process. There is nowhere in the world where you have this massive amount pollution of pollution that there is a cleanup before. Nowhere in the world where there has been this incident of hydrocarbon pollution that has been left to fester for so long. Now in that period since the official flag off, my interpretation is that there is an indication of seriousness. But what has happened, you can’t have the clean up without having the structures to supervise it and handle it”.
He explained that HYPREP has gone to great lengths to put structures in place for the physical space and shovel work of the clean up to commence but regretted that provision of portable water for the people recommended as an emergency measure since 2011 has not been done.
Bassey lamented: “it is really troubling that we don’t have alternative clean water for the Ogoni people. That should have been done like yesterday, even from, 2011. That was an emergency response and that it is lingering is unfortunate, but I understand that there is also bid for that but that should have been done a long time ago.”
