At last, Ogoniland remembered

Close to four years after the August 4, 2011 release by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) of the independent assessment of the environment and public health impacts of oil contamination in Ogoniland, Rivers State, in the Niger Delta region, and options for remediation given, a project UNEP undertook at the request of the Nigerian government, there appears to be a silver lining in the cloud for the remediation of the grave damages done to the area by decades of oil exploration and related activities of multinational oil companies in the area. Reports early last week revealed, for instance, that the world’s largest clean-up and restoration effort will commence at Bodo-Ogoni, in the Gokana Local Government Area of the state, come July this year.

Two solid and reputable international firms, which emerged from a transparent and competitive technical bidding process which commenced in July 2014, were said to have been contracted for the clean-up exercise. The necessary Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with representatives of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), the major oil multinational operating in Ogoniland and Bodo community and other stakeholders, was said to have been signed as well, following mediation efforts by a former Ambassador of Netherlands to Nigeria, Bert Ronhaar and the National Coalition on Gas Flaring and Oil Spills in the Niger Delta (NACGOND). Indeed, financial support for the remediation is expected to come from the Embassy of Netherlands in Nigeria, Rivers State Ministry of Environment, Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency (RSSDA) and UNEP, with the Nigerian Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) and the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) providing support and guidance their own ways.

It is obvious that the latest initiative is not about the wholesale implementation of the UNEP report. But it represents a remarkable milestone in that direction. Since 2011, not much was heard about the UNEP report on Ogoniland, except when in February 2014, the Director-General of NOSDRA, Mr. Peter Idabor, claimed the Federal Government had started implementing the report by addressing some emergency measures, among which was the provision of a Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HPRP) to provide alternative facilities for Ogoni communities. But the UNEP report was more encompassing and penetrating. It stated, for example, that restoring Ogoniland to its old self might take as much as 30 years as s result of over 50 years of pollution occasioned by oil spillage. When he presented the report to President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, UNEP’s Director, Ibrahim Thiaw, said the assessment jointly carried out by his agency and a ‘Presidential Implementation Committee’ for 14 months involved the examination of more than 200 locations, survey of 122 kilometres of pipeline rights of way, review of more than 5,000 medical records and the engagement over 23,000 people at local community meetings. Thiaw said detailed investigation on soil and groundwater contamination in 69 sites spanning hectares of land across local government areas in Ogoniland was equally undertaken. In all, over 4,000 samples were analysed, including water taken from 142 groundwater monitoring wells drilled specifically for the study; and soil extracted from 780 boreholes.

A proposed Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority (OGERA) was to oversee the implementation of the study’s recommendations, while the Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, with an initial capital injection of $1 billion to be contributed by the oil industry and the government, was supposed to be used to kick-start the work. However, by 2012, a year after the report was submitted, no definite steps were taken to revisit the document. The development, perhaps, compelled environmental rights groups like Social Action; Health of Mother Earth Foundation; and Ogoni Solidarity Forum, among others, to converge on August 4, 2013 in Bori, the traditional headquarters of Ogoniland, to commemorate the second anniversary of the release of the UNEP report in protest.

All that should be history now with the anticipated commencement of serious work at Bodo- Ogoni in less than three months time (July 2015). Indeed, the remediation effort kicking off from Bodo promises not just an honour to the memory of the ‘Ogoni 9’ executed in November 1995 over the Ogoni struggle, but the beginning of a new understanding between SPDC and Ogoni natives. This fresh dawn must not be squandered for any reason.