More knocks for govt, firms over UNEP report
• Group demands $100b to clean up Niger Delta
INDIGENES of three communities in Biseni in Yenagoa local council of Bayelsa State Tuesday shut five oil wells belonging to the Nigerian Agip Oil Company over the oil multinational’s alleged refusal to honour the Memorandum of Understanding on the provision of alternative power supply to the communities.
The affected oil wells were 3, 6, 8, 11 and 12, located along the Idu Oil Field, while the access roads were barricaded against Agip workers and security agencies.
The Secretary of Egbebiri II community, Solomon Ogiama, confirmed the development yesterday, claiming that at a meeting with representatives of the communities in April, Agip craved to supply them a power generating set in May but failed to do so.
Ogiama said the firm also failed in the area of employment and community participation in the execution of contract jobs. Such included its failure to award them contract for the building of doctors and nurses’ quarters in the area, “which was part of a General Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) the company signed with the communities in 2001.”
According to him, the company had frustrated every peaceful move by the communities for the renewal of the GMoU, and had not paid for several surveillance contract jobs executed by indigenous contractors in the area for over nine months.
“Why won't we be angry with Agip? We don't have light, we don't have water, there is no borehole, we are not happy with the way and manner Agip is treating us,” Ogiama said, warning that unless the communities meet with the firm’s district general manager and the generator set is provided, the blockades would remain.
Similarly, the Bayelsa State Government yesterday flayed the Federal Government and oil multinationals operating in the Niger Delta region over their alleged refusal to commence the remediation of the devastated communities as recommended by the United Nations Programme on Environment (UNEP) report.
Speaking through the Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Inuiro Wills, the state said that though the Ministry of Petroleum Resources backed the report with the inauguration of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP) in 2012, the Federal Government’s lack of political will and failure of its agencies and the oil multinationals to start the process of implementation were jeopardizing the communities.
In a statement in Yenagoa to mark the third anniversary of the release of the UNEP Environmental Assessment of Ogoni report, Wills said that Governor Seriake Dickson had tried to draw world attention to the rising environmental terrorism through oil exploration and devastation of the communities, while the non-implementation of the report has placed a heavy burden on the state government.
Also at a similar forum in Abuja yesterday, the Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action (ERA) and Friends of the Earth Nigeria (FoEN), Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo, has said the Niger Delta region would require $100 billion to tackle the problems associated with pollution and degradation of the environment due to oil exploration over the years.
He reiterated the demands, among others, that the Ogonis, collaborating with other Niger Delta communities and civil societies, should approach the United Nations (UN) to appoint a Niger Delta Reconciliation and Restoration Commission with autonomy and authority to achieve the goal.
According to Wills, “the rigorous scientific study on the effects of 50 years of continuous oil pollution in Ogoniland represented a template for application or replication across hydrocarbon host communities in the country, and in Bayelsa State in particular, where the scourge of oil-based environmental degradation is in its worst manifestation, largely earning Nigeria and the Niger Delta the tragic distinction of being the oil pollution capital of the world.
“The inauguration of HYPREP to implement the UNEP report and the earlier creation of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) provided some hope that the work of compelling oil corporations, private and governmental, to respect the environmental rights of our communities and redress the damage done to them would soon start effectively.
“Sadly, three years after the UNEP report, that work is yet to start. In particular, HYPREP, which inauguration was attended with much fanfare, is proving a phantom rather than source of succour. Since then, new oil spill, gas flaring and blowouts happen as routine in hundreds of communities in our state.
“In December 2011, a massive oil spill from Shell Petroleum’s Bonga facility affected coastal communities in Bayelsa and Delta states. In January 2012, a catastrophic gas blowout from Chevron’s K S Endeavour rig off the Koluama coastline in Bayelsa State left the incident area ablaze for days and put the entire lives, livelihood and health of dwellers in the host communities in jeopardy.
“A recent ocean surge that swept off in a single swoop the barrier between Koluama and the Atlantic Ocean has raised questions as to a possible connection between that severe ecological-climate event and the Chevron gas blowout of January 2012.
“Agip continues recklessly to maintain a canal of sludge by the Brass Island, while Shell and Agip compete in causing oil spills in Biseni, Ikarama, Sabatoru and similar host communities. Yet, there is scant or no redress or restoration work in earnest in any of the affected communities.”
He continued: “There is also yet to be any restitution - whether substantive or symbolic - to Oloibiri and its sister historic host communities despite repeated promises and foundation laying ceremonies over the decades.
“We call upon all the major oil producing companies and, where applicable, all their emerging successor-companies in the ongoing divestment attempts, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Ministry of Environment, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), HYPREP, NOSDRA, the Niger Delta Development Commission (which has a huge statutory environmental mandate that is largely unattended to) and the National Assembly to take immediate, visible, robust steps to commence or cause the remediation, redress and restoration of our devastated communities and environment in all dimensions.
“We therefore repeat the appeal to all concerned, including relevant international governmental institutions and environmental NGOs, to support the Bayelsa State Government in the steps to enforce environmental rectitude and restoration in the communities and coasts of Bayelsa State.
“As a government that directly shares and sees daily the costly ecological damage across the state, and being the environmental trustee of our affected communities, the Bayelsa State Government remains eager to dialogue and collaborate appropriately with responsible oil industries, relevant intervention agencies, concerned regulatory bodies and international development institutions towards repairing the still accumulating damage.
“But we serve this reminder: that the matter is critically urgent, that it is an overriding legal and moral obligation, that adequate funds and logistics must be mobilized quickly, and that the work of equitable restoration must start now.”
Speaking yesterday in Abuja during the UNEP Assessment on Ogoniland, he noted: “We are not only demanding $1 billion for the Ogoni environment restoration but $100 billion restoration fund for the Niger Delta to address clean-up, restoration and compensation.”
Lamenting the non-implementation of the UNEP report, he declared that Ogoniland remained an ecological disaster zone. Ojo asserted that Shell and the Federal Government have not lived up to expectations in addressing the problem of environmental degradation in Ogoniland.
According to him, Ogoniland has remained a crime scene from ecological and human rights violations and the oil companies and their chief executive officers must be held accountable for “the crime of genocide being perpetrated against Ogoni people.”
According to him, a report by an amalgam of non-governmental organisations “highlights the evidence gathered by numerous experts, who show that Shell manipulates information and avoids accountability for old and leaking pipes.
“The pipes are so old that the company will feel ashamed to disclose their age or integrity status publicly. The issues remain fresh but we must again refresh our memories on why we are gathered here.
“On August 4, 2011, UNEP published a scientific study on Ogoniland which showed Shell's environmental atrocity on the Ogoni people and their environment through frequent oil spills and gas flaring that ruined the environment and rural livelihoods”.
The report findings from three years of intense investigation showed hydrocarbon pollution in surface water throughout the creeks of Ogoniland and up to 8cm in groundwater that feed drinking wells.
“Soils were found to have been polluted with hydrocarbons up to a depth of 5 metres in 49 observed sites, while benzene, a known cancer-causing chemical, was found in drinking water at a level 900 times above World Health Organisation (WHO) acceptable levels.
“The UNEP study also documented that fisheries have been destroyed and that wetlands around Ogoniland are highly degraded. These combined have led to irreparable loss of livelihoods and will take 30 years to remediate. Besides, the report recommended a high level Ogoni Environmental Restoration Authority, and a clean-up and restoration fund of $1 billion.
“It is heart rending that government is complicit in the plot to deny environmental justice to the Ogonis. Shell, for over 50 years, has dolled out baskets of lies and deception in oil extraction activities. Recently, but diabolically Shell blamed the Nigerian Government for not putting in place the requisite framework to make the company to commit funds into remediation.
“It is vexing that the accused, which is the Nigerian Government, is maintaining sealed lips, and like Shell, not making any commitment. In the face of such provocation and impunity, the Nigerian Government is unable to bring Shell to order. The lack of meaningful action gives the impression that Shell is able to get away with the environmental and human rights abuses in the Niger Delta.
“Since the UNEP report, Shell has disputed some of its findings - but without providing any scientific basis for its claims. Shell has defended its clean-up methodology - which the UN said should never be used because it is outdated, not appropriate for such areas and thus ineffective. Shell would not obey the laws of Nigeria and would not accede to the implementation of UNEP report recommendations.”
He thereby called for the scrapping of HYPREP on the basis that it is a mere administrative unit under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and not statutorily set up by law, adding that NOSDRA should be strengthened and empowered with adequate resources to conduct its statutory duties.
SOURCE; http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/news/national-news/173914-community-shuts-agip-oil-wells-in-bayelsa
