Between HYPREP And Ogoni

Except urgent steps are taken, there may be another round of crisis in Ogoni, Rivers State, as a 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 body is requesting for Shekwolo’s sack following what they construed as ‘injustice’, noting that “Ogonis did not die for a Kogi man to come and head their affairs.” ODD, at a media briefing in Bori, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, urged Buhari to replace Shekwolo with a qualified Ogoni son to head HYPREP and maintained that Ogoni had a great collection of people academically qualified to head the agency.
A statement by the ODD leader, Solomon Lenu, declared that as an ethnic group that suffered deprivation, they knew where it hurt them and argued that Shekwolo lacked the moral footing to oversee a clean-up programme which he had in the past defended Shell’s complicity in the oil spill in Ogoniland. He pledged the group’s preparedness to halt 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 Ogoniland, 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 a 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,” Lenu said.
While we remain responsive to ODD’s stand on Shekwolo’s acting assignment, we advise the Ogonis to grant peace a chance and care less about who heads HYPREP since the organisation’s mandate extends beyond Ogoniland. The clean-up agency is not just for Ogonis, but for all the people in the Niger Delta and beyond. Therefore, anyone from the region or outside could be appointed to head the agency.
Rather than feud over who heads HYPREP, the people of Ogoni should unite to enable them to pull through their numerous uncoordinated and disordered agitations. New thinking and strategies are required to prosecute their demands. By constantly shutting out others from their affairs, the Ogonis may succeed in foreclosing their chances of heading critical federal agencies outside the region.
Stakeholders and youth in Ogoniland should close ranks and strengthen HYPREP for a successful clean-up exercise in the area. This would amount to a legacy of the Ogoni struggles handed over to the coming generations. Their shared commitment should be to ensure that at the conclusion of the clean-up, Ogoni will be transformed environmentally and economically into a more prosperous and harmonious community.
Though the HYPREP project is not the exclusive preserve of the Ogoni people, indigenes of the area should be considered first in employment and skill acquisition. While it is expedient for the Ogonis to cooperate with HYPREP in the clean-up exercise, the agency should employ the youths of the area as environmental surveillance officers and other befitting positions.
The Ogoni environmental assessment would not have been conceivable without the persistence and tenacity of the Ogoni struggle for survival. Now that the world has demonstrated greater commitment than ever before to the Ogoni issues, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) must rise to the task. If the clean-up and rehabilitation of Ogoni fail, then Kenule Saro-Wiwa and the many others who lost their lives would have died in vain.
This is the time to organise and strategise to accomplish maximum benefit for the people of the region. It is not enough to criticise virtually all about the remediation exercise; MOSOP must set a definite plan to thoroughly back and help accelerate the process for the restoration of Ogoniland. This will be a befitting legacy of the Ogoni struggle that can be proudly bequeathed to subsequent generations
MOSOP and every other group in the area, including stakeholders, should come together and assist HYPREP in mobilising the people to wholly support the clean-up schedule. For this to work, political resentments and intra or inter-ethnic issues must be flung to the rear burner. There is a need to rally the entire area for the strategy to be successful.
HYPREP must come up with a plan to fully co-opt the varied groups such as social, religious, cultural, among others, to drive their members to raise awareness of the people regarding the remediation exercise. MOSOP should further publicise every schedule and activity of HYPREP and gather inputs and opinions on the methods and progress of the process.
Ogoni is a fraction of the Niger Delta, and the outcome of the cleaning programme will reflect what will possibly happen to the other myriad issues of environmental degradation across the region. The success of this plan will help significantly and provide a useful framework to facilitate and enhance the restoration scheme for other polluted areas in the Niger Delta.