Mixed reactions seem to be trailing the report of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on oil spills in Ogoni land of Rivers State, which was recently submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan.
LEADERSHIP WEEKEND observed that the people of the area, made up of four local government areas, namely: Eleme, Khana, Gokana and Tai are divided in their feelings about the report that stated that the clean-up of their environment would take up to 30 years.
It was further observed that their reactions to the reports were no different from the reactions of the two factions of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) immediately UNEP presented the report to President Jonathan.
An Ogoni youth activist, Comrade Lekia Bariledum Christian, who spoke to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND at Bori, the traditional headquarters of Ogoniland, expressed happiness that the UNEP report came out at last, stressing that it justified the struggle for justice by the people of Ogoni.
He said; “As a person, I am happy because for once the truth has been told. The UNEP report on the level of clean up that needs to take place in Ogoni is certainly going to be the longest clean up in human history. It justifies the struggle for justice for Ogoni people.
“It justifies what Ken Saro-Wiwa suffered and died for. When he was complaining of environmental degradation and all that the land and its people had suffered in the hands of oil multi-nationals, nothing was done.”
Christian commended the chairman of the presidential committee on environmental, survey, and clean-up of Ogoniland, Most Reverend Mathew Hassan Kukah for prevailing on late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua to invite UNEP to carry out the evaluation of Ogoni environment.
While advising the federal government to take the UNEP report serious, as several similar reports had been swept under the carpet of past administrations in the country, the youth activist stated that what happened in Ogoni was peculiar to other parts of the Niger Delta region.
“I urge the federal government to take the report very serious. Several reports had gone under the tables and carpets of several governments in the past, I will like this government to be serious with the Ogoni case.
“What is happening to Ogoni is peculiar to other areas in the Niger Delta and it only but an eye-opener. It is going to be an on-going process which while affect other parts of the Niger Delta as the clean up progresses. It is a welcome development.
“The impact of environmental pollution in Ogoni to the people was enormous. You know of the Ebubu case, which was sighted in that report, not even water gotten from a bore-hole in the community was fit for human consumption. It tells you that the life span of the people have been shortened, their source of livelihood have been affected, but with the clean up coming, there is going to be quality improvement on their lives and the environment and the people will have the opportunity of going back to their farming system, which had been their major source of livelihood, aquatic life would be restored too.
“I just want the federal government to be involved just as the United Nations had pledged to be involved in the monitoring of the clean-up exercise. If anything is going to be done, they should know that the people whose lives and environment has been affected by this pollution will need some sort of assistance. Government should extend such gesture to other Niger Delta communities that had suffered the same fate like the Ogonis,” he said.
An indigene of Mogho community in Gokana local government area of the state, Mr. Barivule Akpor, who spoke to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND, insisted that UNEP cannot claim to have submitted an acceptable report on the oil spills in Ogoni when it failed to carry the people of the area along.
“The issue of UNEP and their mediation in the cleanup of Ogoni land, as far as I am concerned, UNEP has refused to tell the world that they failed. There is no how you can carry out a project in an environment and you succeed without carrying the people along.
“Another thing is that they gave us the impression that they have the technical and professional know-how to execute this project. UNEP should be able to tell the world that they goofed; they failed and should not be taken serious by local and international bodies.
“Let me tell you, Shell relationship with the Ogonis or this part of the world spans over 50 years and if it takes a body like UNEP that claims to have all the technicalities 30 years to clean up Ogoni, then they are not serious,” he said.
Akpor, who is the coordinator of Ogoni Journalists Platform (OGP), a pressure group, said the claim by UNEP that it would take 30 years to clean up Ogoni land was a ploy to create room for oil firms to resume exploitation in the area.
In reaction to the report, Mr. Legor Senewo, an indigene of Bane community, the home-town of slain foremost Ogoni environmentalist, Kenule Saro-Wiwa told LEADERSHIP WEEKEND that it was unfortunate that the people of Ogoni have to wait for another 30 years for the full clean-up of their polluted environment,
stressing that the report does not apply to Ogoni alone but to all the communities in the Niger Delta region.
He said; “As a victim of the Ogoni struggle, you know I was among several that lost so much following that struggle. We lost our home and eventually lost my father, for a cause I honestly believed in based on my understanding of the situation. It was unfortunate that we passed through so much pain to arrive here.
“But right now, we are really frightened to hear that the report is out, though I am yet to read it in full details. By the time I read it, I will be fully informed of its content as it affects the situation.
“Be it as it may, the report has been released, but it is very unfortunate that we have to live for another period of 30 years within which they would be able to clean up this place. I fell that the report does not only apply to the Ogonis but to all communities in the Niger Delta region.”
Senewo, who is also a legal practitioner, said, in considering issues raised in the UNEP report, the people of the area should have a rethink in their development policies in order to avoid causing damages to the environment as it happened in the past.
“On a personal note, it is painful that people have to die for us to realise the extent of the damage we had done through our recklessness, the damage we had done to the environment. What it calls for, may be a rethink of our developmental policies as a people. In fact, it should start from the family, as community, as a government, local state and the federal levels.
“In our quest to develop, what are we willing to accept, so that it does not get to a point where we will pass the bulk tomorrow and say, it was caused by XYZ or it was A that caused it. We need to look into that now that we all know, before then, we did not know. It was people like Ken Saro-Wiwa and other activists that paid dearly with their lives, who knew this, who had this knowledge.
“But now that we know, so we will not have any excuse for not being conscious enough to understand what we can properly call and define as development. Does it mean tearing the forests apart? Does it mean drilling holes every where? Does it mean burning gas? We have to ask ourselves several questions. This is where issues arising from that report could be considered,” he stated.
To Mr. Ledum Mitee, president of the MOSOP, the outcome of the UNEP report vindicated the position of the people of Ogoni and their non-violent approach to justice.
In a statement made available to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND in Port Harcourt, Mitee, who congratulated the people for their courage and steadfastness, appealed to them, irrespective of their political persuasions to come together to use of the victory as the needed rallying point for them to achieve their ultimate victory.
“I congratulate all Ogoni people and salute their courage and steadfastness. I am therefore appealing to all Ogoni people of all political persuasions to come together to use the outcome of this and other victories as the needed rallying point for us to achieve our ultimate victory.
“The times call for every one of us to be prepared to put competition and differences aside as they do threaten the aspirations we have for our people, our children and our land. History will judge us and the success of our struggle by what we eventually accomplish and not by whom or by which group it was accomplished,” he stated.
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