The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria has challenged the newly inaugurated Governing Council and Board of Trustees for the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, for the cleanup of Ogoniland to set up Centre of Excellence to provide capacity building for HYPREP staff and the Ogonis.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, March 12, 2021, inaugurated a 13-member Governing Council and a 10-member Board of Trustees of the Ogoni Trust Fund on Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP).
The Minister of Environment, Dr Mohammad Abubakar, is the Chairman of the governing council while Mr Michael Nwileaghi is the Chairman of the board of trustees.
Mike Karikpo, Porgrammes Director, ERA/FoEN, in a statement signed on behalf of the Executive Director, Dr Godwin Uyi Ojo, while stating that the establishment of the Centre of Excellence was sidelined in the past four years, noted that it resulted in shortchanging the Ogonis of the opportunity to build capacity and skills of the youths.
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According to the statement, the agency saddled with the responsibility of cleaning up ogoniland had almost completely derailed from the goals and objectives set out 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.
While hopeing that sufficient consultations were carried out before the new governing council and board of trustee members were appointed, the environmental rights organisation said it “expect that the members appointed have the capacity and expertise to oversee a complex and multifaceted undertaking like the Ogoni cleanup process.”
Dr. Ojo in the statement further advised the new board and the governing council to avoid any potential conflict of interests in the award of cleanup contracts and procurement process which according to him has been a major issue bisecting the cleanup process.
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He also called for a more inconclusive and participatory project design and implementation process to ward against the shortcomings experienced in the last four years.
“It is critical that there is community and civil society participation in drawing up a short-term and long-term Workplans, Key Performance Indicators and milestones for the next five years of the project.
“The Federal Government environmental legacy project in the last four years has been a story of misplaced priorities, politicised cleanup, 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,” the statement reads in part.
He called on the Federal Government to urgently appoint a substantive coordinator for HYPREP and immediate replacement for Prof Phillip Shokolo, who he alleged is a Shell nominee at the HYPREP coordination office, and presently acts as interim coordinator in the absence of a substantive coordinator.
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“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,” added Dr Ojo.