Lagos—Following the launch of the report of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission (BSOEC), a coalition of Ijaw Interest groups and other critical stakeholders in the environmental sector have demanded its urgent implementation.
The coalition made this known in a statement signed by Efiye Bribena, Secretary, Ijaw Elders Forum (IEF), Mr. Ben Amaebi Okoro, Moderator, Ijaw Nation Forum, Chief Amagbe D. Kentebe BOT Chairman, Embasara Foundation, Ms. Annkio Briggs, BOT Chairperson, Ijaw Women Connect (IWC) and Mr. Pattison Boleigha President, Ijaw Professionals Association (IPA) Lagos.
Others are, Hon. Iniruo Wills, President, Homeland Chapter Ijaw Professionals Association (IPA), Prof. Mondy Selle Gold President, Ijaw Diaspora Council (IDC), Alagoa Morris, Programme Manager/Head, ERA Niger Delta Resource Centre, Yenagoa, Kemedengiyefa Opia, Chairman, Bayelsa NGOs Forum and Mr Lanre Suraju, Chairman, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA).
The report tagged tagged “Environmental Genocide: The Human and Environmental Cost of Big Oil in Bayelsa, Nigeria” was launched by the Bayelsa State government in the United Kingdom.
The event had in attendance high-profile personalities which includes the chairman of the panel, former Archbishop of York and now a member of the UK House of Lords. Lord John Sentamu.
A list of recommendations was outlined by the group to be undertaken by the Bayelsa State Government, Federal Government and other stakeholders.
“An immediate formal demand to the President by the State Government, to immediately promulgate a Niger Delta-wide Environmental Remediation Programme. Several environmentally damaged communities due to oil and gas exploration activities such as Polobubo (formerly Tsekelewu) in the west Niger Delta abound.
“Impose stern sanctions within the State’s power, including revocation of rights of way and land leases over operational sites of repeated or egregious environmental breaches.
“Commit to dedicating 5-10% of Bayelsa State’s revenues to invest as part of the Environmental Recovery Fund proposed in the BSOEC Report, to redress its contributory responsibility for the pollution plague by reason of the state government’s failure in acting within its powers all these years to stop the scourge and safeguard its communities, environment and people.
“The State will reap commensurately and multidimensionally from the fruits of the recovery fund.
“Formally institute a strong call or global campaign on shareholders of Shell, ENI/Agip, Chevron and other operators and/or their parent companies listed on the London, New York and European Stock Exchanges to demand for verifiable comprehensive reports on their environmental pollution footprint in the Niger Delta and remedial measures taken, including the environmental status of their oilfields at the time of divesting them to Nigerian private operators.
“Failing that, shareholders should be systematically persuaded to divest shares in these companies, as their over 60-year track record in Nigeria renders their shareholders’ partakers in the business of blood oil. Their home governments should as well be officially engaged to trigger investigations and sanctions on these corporations.
“Pending consummation of ongoing efforts at an international convention on ecocide, file a formal complaint with the Office of the Prosecutor in the International Criminal Court to investigate the unprecedented ecocide in Bayelsa State as environmental genocide or a continual crime against humanity.
“This is urgent because successive Nigerian Presidents and Ministers of Petroleum and Environment, along with the regulatory agencies under their supervision, including most incumbents in those offices, are deeply complicit by commission or omission in the fossil fuel industry’s ecocide in the Niger Delta.
“They have been conditioned by the Nigerian system to never feel any incentive to act,” the statement reads in part.
The group also recommended the appointment of a Bayelsa State Special Counsel on Environmental Justice and to enforce adequate provisioning and periodic public reporting obligations.
It was suggested that “provisions for an Honorary/Grand Patron or Goodwill Ambassador of the Environment that will leverage international contacts, global social capital and cognate institutions to actualize an “Environmental Marshall Plan” for the State, indeed the Niger Delta region be made.
“NDDC and HYPREP: The Federal Government should properly fund, stabilize and sanitize these two agencies (Niger Delta Development Commission and Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project) that are vested with statutory mandates for the environmental sustainability and remediation of the Niger Delta or, for HYPREP, the Ogoni area of the region.
“Both bodies have been trailed for years by reports and scandals of entrenched corruption, vested external interests/interferences, substandard execution of projects, ghost contracts and subverted tendering/procurement processes, budgetary abnormalities, plus series of arbitrary cum illegal appointments and removal of their executives.
“The new federal administration should beam a searchlight on these important organizations, to arrest the recurrent travesties and reposition them in accordance with their enabling laws for full delivery of their objectives, including the ecological mandate of NDDC.
“The functional failure or unabated drift of either or both would create huge setbacks for any expectations of satisfactory environmental remediation and social recovery in the region and throw the region into a tailspin. That spectre and its implications for Nigeria should be a cause for concern to all, home and abroad.”
The coalition further considers the BSOEC’s recommendation of $12 billion for the Bayelsa State Recovery Fund to be grossly underestimated, in cognizance of the cumulative length, volumes and impacts of the petroleum sector’s environmental genocide in Bayelsa.
According to them, the estimate must be carefully reviewed for adequacy by the State Government and key parties.
“The people of Bayelsa State expect the brisk, faithful execution of the Lord Sentamu Report’s action points, and to hear particularly from the Federal Government and the Bayelsa State
“Government without further delay. Let us stop the talk and clean up the oiled wasteland. Only then can our People trust our governments.”
