Except an urgent step is taken, there may be another round of crisis in Ogoni, Rivers State as a concerned youth group under the aegis of Ogoni Development Drive (ODD) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Acting Project Coordinator of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Programme (HYPREP), Prof. Philip Shekwolo.
The group said the call for Shekwolo’s sack became necessary because of what they described as ‘injustice’, noting that “Ogonis did not die for a Kogi man to come and head their affairs.”
The youth group, at a media briefing in Bori, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, at the weekend, called on Buhari to replace Shekwolo with a qualified Ogoni son to head HYPREP, stressing that Ogoni has a good number of people academically qualified to head the agency.
A statement signed by the leader of the group, Solomon Lenu, stated that as an ethnic group that wears the shoe of deprivation, they know where it pinches them.
Lenu argued that Shekwolo lacked the moral ground to oversee a remediation programme which he had in the past defended Shell’s complicity in the oil spill in Ogoniland.
He demanded that the Federal Government urgently investigate how the clean-up money collected by HYPREP has been spent.
Lenu, however, disclosed the group’s readiness to sacrifice everything legally and otherwise available to them to stop Shekwolo from becoming a substantive project coordinator of HYPREP.
“I am sad today because the present Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Professor Phillip Shekwolo, a former staff of Shell, the company at the epicentre of the oil crisis in Ogoni land, was made an acting PC to correct the wrongs generated by his predecessor, Dr Marvin Dekil, but he (Shekwolo) had since deviated to fest his nest on the common patrimony of the dying Ogoni people.
“It will interest you to know that since his appointment in an acting capacity, rather than focusing on what would bring solution to the myriad of problems confronting Ogonis, Shekwolo only devotes his stay in HYPREP to bribe people to support his confirmation as the HYPREP substantive PC.
“On this note, we call on President Muhammadu Buhari to remove Prof. Phillip Shekwolo as the PC of HYPREP and replace him with a qualified Ogoni son because we have a good number of Ogonis who are academically qualified with decades of field experience to head that agency. It is also important to state that, he who wears the shoes knows where it pinches. We know our problems, and we know how to go about it but Phillip Shekwolo does not.
“We want the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, investigate how the clean-up money so far collected by HYPREP has been spent. This is imperative because the so-called clean-up is all about a political gimmick controlled and influenced by politicians from within and without Ogoni.
“Ogoni youths and elders say capital ‘NO’ to Philip Shekwolo as substantive HYPREP coordinator.
“Philip Shekwolo is a Shell surrogate who, in the past, defended Shell that there was no oil spill in Ogoniland, that if there was any, it was the orchestration of Ogonis themselves to blackmail Shell.
“Ogonis did not die for a Kogi man to come and head HYPREP for us, when no non-indigene has ever headed the North East Development Commission. So, HYPREP and Ogoni Trust fund will not be the first.
“We are equally ready to sacrifice everything legally and otherwise available to us to ensure we stop this sacrilegious appetite of Shekwolo,” Lenu said in the statement.