Elders in Niger Delta region have lamented environmental genocide caused by oil exploration activities in Bayelsa State.

The elders and stakeholders, who spoke in Lagos, yesterday, urged the Federal Government to immediately demonstrate to the international environmental community its commitment to take remedial action, rather than mere endless talk without actions.

They include Secretary, Ijaw Elders Forum (IEF), Lagos, Efiye Bribena; Moderator, Ijaw Nation Forum, Ben Okoro; BoT Chairman, Embasara Foundation, Amagbe Kentebe; BOT Chairperson, Ijaw Women Connect (IWC), Annkio Briggs; President, Ijaw Professionals Association (IPA), Lagos, Pattison Boleigha; President, Homeland Chapter, Ijaw Professionals Association (IPA), Iniruo Wills; President, Ijaw Diaspora Council (IDC), Prof. Monday Selle Gold; Programme Manager/Head, Era Niger Delta Resource Centre, Yenagoa, Alagoa Morris; Chairman, Bayelsa NGOs’ Forum, Kemedengiyefa Opia and Chairman, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA), Lanre Suraju.

They urged government to implement the report released by Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission (BSOEC) last month and chaired by former Archbishop of York and now member of the UK House of Lords, Lord John Sentamu.

The stakeholders maintained that the happenings are indices of pathology, which are threats to the continued existence of the Ijaw indigenous nationality and physical integrity of their homeland.

The elders said this could provoke any affected population into self-help where the governments, regulators and justice systems that should secure and rescue them have either failed them or in some cases appear to be in collaboration with the genocidal polluters.

The groups, therefore, urged shareholders of Shell, ENI/Agip, Chevron and other operators and their parent-firms listed on the London, New York and European Stock Exchanges to demand for verifiable comprehensive reports on their environmental pollution footprint in 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.”

They urged President Bola Tinubu through the state government to immediately promulgate a Niger Delta-wide environmental remediation programme, noting that several environmentally damaged communities due to oil and gas exploration activities such as Polobubo in the west Nigeria Delta abound.

They lamented that the happenings in Bayelsa is a snapshot of the situation in the Niger Delta region – a catastrophe continuing since commercial oil production started in Nigeria (within present day Bayelsa State) in 1956.

To drive the implementation of the report, the groups recommended, “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.”

Appoint and capacitate a Bayelsa State Special Counsel on Environmental Justice Enforcement, with adequate provisioning and periodic public reporting obligations.

“Appoint and make suitable 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.

“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 organisations, 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 Guardian)

•Chairman, Board of Trustees, Embasara Foundation, Amagbe Kentebe (left); Secretary, Ijaw Elders Forum, Lagos chapter, Efiye Bribena, and Ijaw leader, Anthony Ikoli, during a news conference by the Coalition of Ijaw Interest Groups and other stakeholders in the environment sector in Lagos

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