OGOCUGOTF: HOW THE DONS ARE DRIVING ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION IN THE NIGER DELTA QUIETLY

BY SAM NWOKORO l Thursday, August 30, 2018

LAGOS, Nigeria – Perhaps, it has become inexcusable or perhaps, and more fundamentally, the issue has become a global embarrassment of a sort to the largest black nation in the world, Nigeria. And the issue is the age long problem of holistic environmental reclamation of Nigeria’s hydrocarbon belt—the Niger Delta region comprising Delta, Abia,Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom,Imo, Ondo,Edo, Rivers, Anambara, and lately, Lagos states.

Lagos state is not strictly located in the Niger Delta region, though in 2017, the Federal Government included it among the oil producing states, receiving derivation allocation. By some inexplicable controversies, Anambara state that started producing oil via its Orient Refinery-owned rigs and transported into Nigeria’s crude oil export terminal in River state via the Ohambele River was cut off from receiving derivation allocation.

The story that made the rounds out of official circles then in 2014 was that the oil field which Orient drilled was located outside Anambara state, even though other local oil firms and multinationals have oil wells and fields outside their states or countries of origin.

However, one subject in the Niger Delta conundrum that has been strutting up since the early 90s when environmental degradation of the Niger Delta area started striking on people’s livelihood and consciousness is the Ogoni environmental degradation. Nigeria’s first produced crude burst forth from the belly of this community. Here, fresh water and swamp have been rendered acidic. Aquatic creatures have migrated beyond Nigeria. Green forests have been denuded. Snaking pipelines, both new and old chop off a greater percentage of land area. Agriculture is all but dead, only just being revived because spilled crude has killed microbes in the soil. Thus, the soil refuse to yield satisfactorily.

Flaring gases which has not abated poisons the air and regularly spews all kinds of respiratory, cancerous and digestive  health pandemics. The population there are regularly blighted by new poorly detected epidemics, some unheard of in any part of the world—all because the Nigerian state had for all the donkey years of oil exploration and production not factored in community health. Angry youths just discovering how Nigeria’s fiscal politics is skewed against them regularly vent their spleen on Nigeria’s oil production activities in the area, most times messing up Nigeria’s economic and fiscal projections which still anchors on crude oil and gas exports.

Perhaps, the malfeasance called militancy originated and networked from here. The community’s skyline is regularly blanketed and blackened by thick, black misty smokes from up-flaring gas billowing with smoke and heading towards heavens. Flooding crude, spilling from burst pipelines, and set ablaze intentionally or accidentally by irate mobs is a regular spectacle here.

Bunkering, theft, kidnapping, piracy, international mercenaries, protests, riots, most times violent confrontations with state security authorities and Nigeria’s crude oil business partners, mostly IOCs provide risky source of livelihood for many of the youths in those oil states in the Eastern part of Nigeria. Here politics and local lordship mingle with crime and genuine activism to keep the Niger Delta area  on the world’s map of insecurity. Here hell is real.

Previous efforts to address thee problems have been fire-brigade, lacking holistic content, approach, structure, and schedules. It has all been fits and starts since the OMPADEC (Oil Mineral Producing Development Commission) era of the 90s.But the latest efforts by the Ogoni Clean-Up governing Trust Fund (OGOCUGOTF) set up by the present Muhammadu Buhari administration may provide the needed elixir if it walks its talks and how-to(s)in the task of reclaiming Ogoniland in Rivers state and putting an end—if possible—of perennial complaints of cheating and marginalization by indigenes of mineral oil producing areas, especially in Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Imo and Akwa Ibom where Nigeria’s main export terminals and strategic oil and gas investments are located.

The world is looking up to the trio of OGOCUGOFT governing board chairman, Mr Wale Edu, its HYPREP (Hydrocarbon pollution Remediation Project coordinator, Dr Marvin Derky, and one other technical member of the board in charge of “LIVELIHOOD”, a special unit in the entire UNEP-authorized  Ogoni-Clean-Up project structure, Professor Ben Nane.

These trio were present at thje latest Ogoni-Clean-Up stakeholders summit which took place in Bayelsa state recently. Present at the event included the Minister of environment and other members of the board. In his opeing remarks, the Minister disclosed that a host of technical consultants, cutting across all disciplines of natural sciences and humanities were recruited within the Niger Delta states to serve in the board.

“Implementation of the health impact study in the Niger Delta is on-going. It has taken place in two states and about two hundred surgeries has taken place. One of such outreaches took place in April 2, 2018”, he informed.

The Ogoni Clean Up project is being driven by a multi-purpose project vehcle, the HYPREP (Hydrocarbon Pollution and Remediation project) . According to Professor Derky who heads that unit, and also a son of Ogoniland,: “HYPREP has two mandates which is to implement the 2011 United Nations Environment Court award and to implement its four main key components viz: process, remediation, impact and assessment.

According to him, process unit will understudy how each type of environmental problem  occurred. Impact unit will know the impact of each environmental disaster type on the health and well-being of the affected community will be handled. Remediation unit will outline and implement the appropriate remediation solution suitable for such type, while the assessment unit would assess the impact of each remediation measure apped with a view to amend or sustain it.

Dr Marvin is an attorney and also a multi-disciplinary technocrat in international law and business. He disclosed at the Bayelsa summit that it became necessary for the Ogoni-Clean-Up Governing Board to make the Ogoni-Clean-up project a government and private sector partnership effort to ensure sustainability and to attain continuity of remediation efforts in all the Niger Delta affected areas.”To ensure funds mobilized are safe, the Board had concluded arrangements with Standard Chartered Bank London as its bankers and financial advisors.

It is ill-advisable that we would be depositing huge amounts of public funds in local banks that are ony capitalized to the tune of only N25 billion, more so when most of them are in varying degrees of stress. We have a technical group in the board that will oversee what has been done before another fund is released in the remediation programs.To date, we have received funds from Shell, NNPC, and some other IOCs. They have released the first tranche for the year”,the Board Chairman disclosed, though he did not give a specific amount.

Professor Ben Nana, another technocrat on the board emphasized that everything about Ogoni Clean up project is structured to regularly put food on the table of Ogoni people, and to diversify their lifestyle empowerment-wise and skill-wise on sustainable basis so that the citizens would not think of militancy or breaking pipes.

With the details and unambiguous explanations and the meticulous template the trio have designed for the Ogoni clean up and the Niger Delta areas in general, it is as good concluding that before 2030, the UN timeline for sustainable Development agenda (SDA), the entire Niger Delta area would have become  like any other economically and industrially buoyant part of the country, courtesy of the hands-on knowledge of Professor Marvin, Wale Edu and Professor Nana.