- PRESS STATEMENT ON NON-INCLUSION OF OGONI CLEAN UP IN 2012 BUDGET -
The Council of Ogoni Professionals (COP International, USA), the umbrella body of all Ogoni professionals in the United States of America is appalled by the statement credited to the Nigerian Minister of Environment, Mrs. Hadiza Mailafia that no funds were provided for the implementation of the UNEP Report on Ogoni in the 2012 budget, as contained in the Online Punch publication of Friday, February 10, 2012 titled “Ogoni Clean up not in 2012 Budget – Minister”.
The disclosure of the Minister that the main reason for the exclusion of the $1billion for the clean up in the 2012 budget was caused by the delay of the committee reviewing the report is completely baseless, laughable, insulting and an affront on our collective sensibilities on how governments operate. The remarks credited to the Environment Minister, to a greater extent speaks volumes about the inefficiency, ineptitude, and administrative malfeasance of the Jonathan Administration, owing to the fact that the $1billion bill for the clean-up was not supposed to be footed by Nigerian tax payers rather by the principal culprit- Shell.
It is a standard global practice that whenever oil companies pollute any environment where they operate, they directly take responsibility for the clean-up while the government conducts oversight and quality-control. The clean up of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was done in the same way and we wonder why the Jonathan Administration has deviated from this norm and want to bear the cost of the clean up instead of letting Shell take up the responsibility.
The Council of Ogoni Professionals investigations into this matter reveal that the committee set up by the President to review the report which the Minister referenced in her remarks before the Senate Committee on Environment is yet to meet since it was set up last year and there are no plans for the committee to meet soon. The insinuation of Mrs. Hadiza Mailafia who is also a member of the committee, that the committee will soon meet can best be described as a face-saving strategy and a deliberate attempt to deceive and distract the attention of the public from the murky politics being played behind closed doors by President Jonathan and others to use the report as a basis for clean up the entire Niger Delta, rather than clean up the Ogoni environment for which the report was made.
While such an idea of cleaning up the entire Niger Delta is not a bad one, we see such a move as a deliberate way of stalling the implementation of the report and further marginalization of the Ogoni people by the Federal Government of Nigeria because if the government cannot afford to provide oversight for clean-up of the Ogoni environment, how can the government be able to clean up the entire Niger Delta region whose size is about fifty times the size of Ogoni?
The Ogonis like other minorities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria are quite aware that President Jonathan is only concerned about how to consolidate his grip on power as well as protect the interests of his Ijaw ethnic nationality, so we don’t expect any good thing to happen to the Ogoni people under his administration. However, the UNEP is the best thing that has happened to us as a people in recent times, courtesy of President Olusegun Obasanjo because it authenticates our struggle and we can not let anyone trample the report under foot.
It is an indisputable fact that asking Shell to pay $1billion for the Ogoni clean up exercise is equivalent to scooping a cup of water from an ocean. Shell has publicly declared that she is willing to work with the government and the Ogoni people to implement the report, so we appeal to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to immediately stop playing tribal politics with the UNEP Report and allow Shell to tackle this oil spills before our patience run out.
Signed:
Comrade Barima Victor Wifa
Coordinator
COUNCIL OF OGONI PROFESSIONALS (COP INTERNATIONAL USA) C/O P.O. BOX 11019 SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI 63111 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. TEL: (314) 489-7851; EMAIL: copusaintl@gmail.com
FEBRUARY 11, 2012.
