ENVIRONMENTAL Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN has asked the Federal government to implement the recommendations of the United Nations Environmental Program UNEP report on Ogoniland.
The organisation observed that “It is shocking and simply absurd that two years after the UNEP assessment was concluded and submitted, no meaningful action has been taken to show that the Nigerian government is ready to compel Shell to take responsibility for its environmental crimes of ecological disaster in Ogoniland”.
Nigeria Pilot confirmed that the UNEP findings released on August 4, 2011 confirmed earlier claims of ecological disaster. It reportedly showed hydrocarbon pollution on surface water throughout the creeks of Ogoni and up to 8cm in groundwater that feed drinking wells.
“Soils were found to have been polluted with hydrocarbons up to a depth of five 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”.
Arising from the report, ERA/FoEN also did an empirical study conducted to gauge the level of implementation of the UNEP report and found that two years after, the Ogonis are still languishing from the pains of environmental injustice, impoverishment and misery.
Ogonis had rejected the hasty setting up of a Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project, HYPREP to muscle the local people and give a semblance of action.
“We are unequivocal that the HYPREP and the ongoing illegal activities by Shell in Ogoniland do not in any way represent the United Nations recommendations. HYPREP should either be scrapped or made to redress its usurpation of National Oil Spills Detection and Remediation Agency, NOSDRA, or should be made a unit under NOSDRA. NOSDRA should be statutorily responsible for the clean-up of Ogoniland rather than the administrative status of HYPREP.
It called on all well meaning Nigerians to join efforts across the globe in demanding that Shell begin the immediate and full implementation of the UNEP Environmental Assessment Report on Ogoniland. For Shell, a day of reckoning is at hand.
