By Suyi Ayodele

“I am happy the mangroves are coming back. I feel happy because for a longtime now, we haven’t had fish, no crabs; life has not been easy. But today, I can walk through that (pointing at the river in Gio) to fetch this jionudor (a palm tree-like stump) that serves as our firewood. Before now, the river was covered by oil. Everything in it died. Now, aquatic life is coming back gradually. I am happy and I know many of our people are happy.”

The above are the words of 65-year-old Godwin kirijio a retired civil servant, as he waded through the shallow end of the Ogoni River in Gio, Gokane Local Government of Rivers State. I engaged the retired civil servant by the bank of the river.

At a time when the Rivers of Crisis is threatening to overflow its bank, I was on a tour of the creeks of Ogoniland.

My beat is the South-South and the South-East as Regional Editor of the Nigerian Tribune. I had heard stories of poisoned soil and dead fishes and wanted a feel of the life that killed them. Then, I had an opportunity through an agency of the government called HYPREP (Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project) which is charged with cleaning up the polluted soil and water of Ogoniland. The Dr Peterside Dakuku-led Media Voices for Accountability extended the opportunity to me which I grabbed without hesitation. I wish there was a political equivalent of that agency HYPREP. If there was, we would empower it to detoxify our politics, clean up the beds of Rivers and make the people live again.

The two-day voyage in Ogoniland opened my eyes to the effects of the damages caused in that locality by the activities of the International Oil Companies (IOCs), which have operated in Ogoniland for over six decades. I saw what many may never see.

Remember Titusville, Pennsylvania, United States of America? It is the ‘Oil Creek Valley’, where Edwin L. Drake first struck oil in commercial quantity on August 27, 1859. The story of the once booming creek-turned city presents for every good student of petroleum history, the evil associated with the wealth obtained from the black substance known as crude oil.

The unfortunate story of Titusville has nothing to do with the fact that the first oil explorer, Drake, died as a poor prisoner in 1880. The tragedy of Titusville lies in the environmental degradation caused by the oil exploration activities that have affected the environment and the people.

The most unfortunate account of the misfortune of oil exploration in Titusville is contained in what petroleum experts call ‘Orphaned Oil Wells’, a euphemism for abandoned oil wells that have passed their usefulness. Those once-prosperous oil wells, now abandoned, cause unmitigated environmental damages.

The American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA,) states that over three million ‘Orphaned Oil Wells’, which “have not been properly plugged and decommissioned”, are scattered all over the country with “over nine million Americans living within a mile of the abandoned oil wells!”

The implications, according to the EPA, are that: “When an oil well is abandoned, it may emit toxins and pollution that contaminate groundwater, affecting local communities and the environment. Abandoned and orphaned wells are also considered major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions… Improperly plugged or decommissioned oil and gas wells are essentially open holes in the ground. They may release toxins like methane, arsenic, benzene, and hydrogen sulphide into the environment, even when they are no longer productive. They can cause fires and explosions. Even a small leak from a single well could have a tremendous impact over years or decades, affecting the soil and groundwater and causing air pollution.”

As it was with Titusville in God’s Own Country, America, so it is with the oil-rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The elders of my place say that a whirlwind which troubles the ogi (raw akamu) seller must have rendered the yam-flour seller empty of her wares (Ategun to damu ologi ti so elelubo d’ofo). If America with its sophistication in technology could lament about environmental degradation because of oil exploration, one can imagine the fate of the environment and the people of the Niger Delta.

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The history of Ogoniland is one that humanity will never forget. The oil-rich locality was largely unknown until the early ’90s when the indigenes began agitating against the adverse effects of oil exploration in the area and demanded action to alleviate their suffering. The flagship of that agitation was the Ogoni Bill of Rights of November 1990, endorsed by leaders of Ogoni from Babbe, Gokana, Ken Khana, Nyo Khan and Tai.

The Bill, an intellectual arm of the struggle against environmental devastation in Ogoniland, also had its militant wing known as the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP). MOSOP was led by the State-murdered environmentalists, writer and poet, Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa, otherwise known as Ken Saro-Wiwa, or simply, Saro-Wiwa.

The agitation for the emancipation of Ogoniland from the shackles of IOCs visiting untold environmental pollution in the area took a tragic-dramatic turn on May 21, 1994, when the foursome of Albert Badey, Edward Kobani, Theophilus Orage and Samuel Orage, who were holding a meeting in Giokoo Community in the Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State, were attacked by an irate mob and murdered.

The Federal Military Government of the expired Head of State, General Sani Abacha, wasted no time as it arrested Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others, accusing them of being the masterminds of the killing of the four Ogoni leaders. Saro-Wiwa and his eight Ogoni leaders: Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine, were railroad before Justice Ibrahim Auta’s special tribunal which found them all guilty and sentenced them to death by hanging.

The Abacha-led military junta affirmed the sentence on November 8, 1995, and had all the nine Ogoni leaders executed on November 10, 1995. Their bodies were never released to their families! In all, Ogoniland lost 13 of its illustrious sons to the agitation to have a clean environment for the people. Many of the IOCs left the area and have not returned. Many oil wells in the locality became ‘orphaned’ and the attendant effects of such ‘Orphaned Oil Wells’ combined with the already environmental degradation, made Ogoniland lie in waste!

The death of the initial Ogoni Four and the State murder of the Ogoni Nine opened the eyes of the international communities to the happenings in Ogoniland. Taking a clue from the happenings, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) commissioned a report on the environmental devastation in Ogoniland. The UNEPA report recommended, among others, the immediate remediation of the soil and groundwater in Ogoniland.

The report was presented to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government, which did nothing. Thus, the Ogoni Clean-Up project became a political sloganeering in the hands of successive governments until, surprisingly, the lethargic administration of General Muhammadu Buhari took over the challenge and initiated the Ogoni Clean-Up Project with the establishment of HYPREP under the Federal Ministry of Environment, vide a memo dated April 28, 2022, with Ref No, PRES/81/SGF/82.

Before the Ogoni Clean-Up Tour, Ogoni had remained, to me, a mystery; a land of fairy tales, typical of the mystical city of Kathmandu in Nepal. So, the tour became experiential, especially as the team was taken through the landscapes to have first-hand information of what happened in the land of Ken Saro-Wiwa, and what HYPREP is doing in fulfilling the mandate given to it to remediate Ogoniland.

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The idea of the tour, when it was first mooted by Dr Dakuku, ignited in me a deep sense of enthusiasm. I knew it was an opportunity I must take, first, out of curiosity. But more importantly, to have a first-hand idea of what the famous Ogoniland of the late KenSaro-Wiwa and his eight other heroes of the 1995 agitation against the inhuman environmental degradation caused in the area, and the entire Niger Delta in general, looks like, by the operations of the IOCs extracting crude oil.

My first impression as we took a detour to Ogoniland was that life had returned to the once-devastated land. The pre-tour presentation by the Communication Department of HYPREP headed by Dr Enuolare Mba-Nwighoh on what the body had put on the ground, no doubt fired inspiration to explore the famed Ogoniland. Ditto the idea, as suggested by the Project Coordinator (PC) of HYPREP, Professor Nenibarin Zabbey, that HYPREP had gone beyond the original mandate of remediation to providing basic infrastructures to make life abundant for the Ogoni people.

So, as we hit Ogoniland, I looked out to see if indeed the narratives have changed and if life is back in Ogoniland. I admit here that indeed, Ogoniland is getting back its glory before the devastation. The peasants and their farmlands, the luxuriant vegetation, the new road networks and the presence of government in the locality all combined to show that Ogoniland will be great again.

Just as Professor Zabbey, HYPREP Project Coordinator assured that: “HPREP will implement the UNEP reports and recommendations but not sheepishly” but would “add value to the report. Beyond the core value of remediation as recommended by UNEP, we are adding electricity, healthcare delivery services and potable water facilities”, the agency can be said with empirical evidence that it has lived up to its billing as an interventionist agency.

The HYREP water projects in Korghor/Gio and Barako, the giant ongoing 100-bed specialist hospital in Dotem due for completion in September; the 40-bed cottage hospital at Buan Community slated for commissioning in July and the N40 billion Centre of Excellence, a research institute with its Integrated Soil Management Centre (ISMC), sitting on a 28-hectare of land, are mind-boggling!

With what HYPREP has been able to do, one can confidently say that life is back in Ogoniland! The remediation works ongoing in Ogoniland to address the pain of the people are pointers to the fact that life could become abundant in the area again.

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Day two of the tour of the HYPREP remediation sites opened one’s eyes to the level of devastation visited on the agrarian community by the various oil companies that had operated in Ogoniland in the last 60 years! I saw for the first time what oil spillage looks like. I was shocked and sad to see, for instance, at LOT 15 of the Obajioken remediation site, a land measuring 30,750 square metres, polluted up to 6.2 metres deep! Even with my almost total anosmia state, I could perceive the smell of crude oil in the environment!

But it is heartwarming to note that gradually, life is returning to Ogoniland. Revegetation is taking place and aquatic habitats are being restored. The massive excavation sites geared towards removing the contamination in the soil and groundwater are encouraging. One can boast that the Ogoni Clean-up project has gone beyond political sloganeering and has now become a reality.

More engaging is the fact that HYPREP is also focusing on reforestation of the ancient Ogoni mangroves. Though I couldn’t follow the team on the voyage to the big sites for the mangrove replanting because of my phobia of water, the few sites by the banks of the Ogoni River at Goi in Gokana Local Government Area, are enough testimonials that aquatic elements and avian species would soon return to their natural habitats. The simple implication of this is that the locals would soon have their aquatic delicacies and means of livelihood back!

More delightful is the engagement of the locals in the projects. The sense of belonging, relevance and ownership given to the Ogoni rural dwellers cannot be quantified. This is the physical manifestation of light at the end of the tunnel!

This is why HYPREP cannot afford to drop the ball. Its ambitious projects in Ogoniland indicate that with the right mindset, sustainable willpower, and determination to make a difference, establishments can indeed change the narrative for a people once on the verge of extinction. One can only hope and pray that Nigeria will not happen to those giant strides in Ogoniland.

The Ogoni people, nay, the entire Nigerian people, owe it a duty to sustain the efforts of HYPREP in Ogoniland by building a solid wall of protection around the facilities deployed to redress the injustices of the past six decades. HYPREP must be self-challenged to keep upping the ante. The success of the Ogoni Clean-Up Project is the success of the Niger Delta people.

The PC of HYPREP, Professor Zabbey, re-echoed this when he intoned that “HYPREP sees the Ogoni clean-up project beyond Ogoniland. What we are doing is a sustainable project for the entire Niger Delta region and the whole country at large. We are determined to ensure that what we are doing in Ogoniland will serve as a template for other areas where we have that kind of experience as Ogoni.” Nothing can be more encouraging!

As the tour ended, the biggest message for me is that the late environmentalists, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and his fellow Ogoni patriots who were murdered by the State, and the four Ogoni chiefs who paid the supreme price for a better Ogoniland, in the wake of the Ogoni crisis, did not die in vain. Without any intention to engage in necromancy, I say this: Ken Saro-Wiwa, hear this: You and your ideas live on in HYPREP.