UNEP Report: Senator Cautions Against Delay

The Senator representing Rivers South East,  Senatorial District, Senator Magnus Abe, has appealed to the Federal Government to fast-track the implementation process of the UNEP report on Ogoni pollution in the Niger Delta.

In an interview  in Port Harcourt on Tuesday on the sidelines of a memorial lecture to mark the 17th anniversary of the execution of the Ogoni 9 in 1995 and the murder of four other prominent Ogonis in 1994. Senator Abe urged the Federal Government to intensify more efforts at addressing the environmental concerns of the Ogoni people.

It would be recalled that the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoni was released on September 2011 with a call on the Nigerian authorities to compel the multinational oil companies operating in the area to clean up the pollution caused by oil decades of oil exploration activities in the area.

Abe noted that the oil pollution in Ogoni land had contaminated both surface and ground water sources at levels more than 900 times above World Health Organisation-prescribed safety limit. He said that the level of pollution in the area was such that every Ogoni person was a potential cancer patient.

“The response to the UNEP report from the Nigerian government has been very poor; first after the submission of the report, it took almost a year before any visible step was taken. “But up till now, we can see no visible movement on any immediate efforts to try to address the several issues raised in the report.