Worried over the continuous delay in the clean-up of Ogoni environment, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has called on world leaders and all men of conscience to intervene in the situation.
MOSOP is specifically seeking for pressure to be put on Nigerian Government and Shell Petroleum Development Company and its joint venture partners, to immediately commence the holistic implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on the Ogoni environment to avert an impending genocide.
In a statement in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, yesterday, by its spokesman, Mr Fegalo Nsuke, MOSOP noted that there was rise in reports of deaths in the area due to exposure to oil spill.
Nsuke said: “Between March 2 and 17, 2018, Bodo community in Gokana Local Government Area alone buried 33 persons while 29 persons died in K-Dere also in Gokana council. Similar reports are coming from other Ogoni villages.
“MOSOP wants to use this opportunity to alert the world of what is clearly a Shell/state-sponsored genocide in Ogoniland. We are concerned that Shell and the government of Nigeria are doing little or nothing about the restoration of Ogoniland and the immediate provision of water for the people even as communities record increasing death rates.
“MOSOP flays this inhuman attitude of the Nigerian government and Shell, and urge the world not to allow this happen in the 21st century.
“We take exception to the fact that just recently in December, 2017, the Nigerian government approved $1billion to purchase arms to kill humans in the fight against insurgents, the same government that has failed to provide an agreed sum of $200million annually for five years to save the lives of over 1million people in Ogoniland.”
However, The Tide investigations show that the SPDC management had, last year, released $10million to the Hydrocarbon Pollution and Restoration Project (HYPRP), the Federal Government agency driving the clean-up of Ogoniland, as part of its contribution to the implementation of the UNEP report.
It revealed that SPDC had built an integrated water facility in Ogale, Eleme; and has been implementing emergency water supply initiative for communities in Ogoni since the release of the report in August, 2011, and complied with UNEP recommendations by conducting the clean-up and remediation of 15 identified spill sites in the report.
It has also concluded assets inventory, and plans a comprehensive decommissioning programme for its facilities in Ogoniland.
Apart from the campaign against illegal oil bunkering and pipeline vandalism in communities in Ogoniland, the company is said to have been implementing a number of empowerment programmes for Ogoni youth through its LiveWIRE Scheme, while also awarding scholarships to many secondary school and university undergraduate students from the area.
Meanwhile, The Federal Government, yesterday, stated that until all the components of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), are passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the Presidency, no new licensing rounds for oil wells would be conducted.
Speaking in Abuja, at the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), symposium on the PIB, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, disclosed that the Federal Government would only award new licenses for oil production under new legislations.
Kachikwu, who was represented by his Senior Technical Adviser on Efficiency, Mr. Johnson Awoyomi, emphasized the need for transparency and clear policy direction in the Nigerian petroleum industry.
He said, “Finally, it is a national priority to have certainty and clarity over the operations of the petroleum industry as it will foster more licensing rounds, enhance revenues and increased economic activities.
“New acreages will be awarded for exploration and production under new laws and terms, especially offshore which is likely to account for much of the growth in the nation’s reserves.
“For too long, we have waited for this moment with bated breath and sheer excitement, knowing that the bill will disentangle us from the manacles of inefficiency, low investment drive and opacity.”
Kachikwu said stakeholders must relish the urgency of the current stage at which the various petroleum bills are, stating that all hands should be on deck to making sure the bill achieves what it is meant to achieve.
“Getting to the yes on the PIGB is a great milestone, I am so glad we have begun heeding the clarion’s call,” he noted.
The minister lamented that the aggregation of laws which had governed the Nigerian oil and gas sector over the years had become archaic and no longer competitive and needs to be reviewed and harmonized into a comprehensive law.
He said, “After a critical study of the myriad of challenges on ground, we observed that crucial to the fixing of these problems lies in the question of the governance of the industry, and effort from the legal wing which could play a critical role in presenting a robust, effective governance and institutional framework for the management and regulation of petroleum resources in Nigeria.
“The role of the government needs to be better clarified by refocusing the mandate of the policy, regulatory and commercial institutions to ensure better sector governance, transparency of regulations and operations, accountability of the institutions and removal of opaqueness around the industry.”
Also speaking, Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr. Waziri Adio, however, stated that passage and assent to the bill do not signify the end of the sector’s challenges, noting that the most crucial part aspect is the implementation of bill when it eventually becomes law.
He said, “But we will be deluded to think the job is done. It is not. Succumbing to such a temptation will be wrong-headed and misdirected. And here we are not just talking about the need to finally pass the PIGB and transmit it to the President for assent. And not even about ensuring that the other three bills are passed and signed. It is more about ensuring effective implementation of the resultant laws in ways that will reposition and transform our oil and gas sector to become a real blessing, and not this needless curse, for our people.
“Our expectation is that we will address many of the questions that have been asked, including those yet to be asked, or at least set us thinking seriously about these questions. Some of these include: what transitional arrangements are being contemplated? What is the plan for the fiscal, host community and administrative bills?