Okenyi Kenechi
Ahead of the much-speculated clean-up of the contaminated Ogoni Environment by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, Ogonis have been urged to ensure that the $170 million released by the Federal Government to the trust fund for the Ogoni clean-up, was utilised for the benefits of the people of the area.
This was part of the decision reached at the first memorial lecture in honour of late Senator Cyrus Nunieh on Monday in Bori, the traditional headquarters of the Ogoni.
Senator Nunieh died on 15th August at 88.
Senator Magnus Abe, who chaired the occasion called on Ogoni people to be vigilant, noting that the money had remained the highest trust fund in the country.
The senator paid glowing tributes to Nunieh for standing up for the Ogoni people first as a lawyer and as a senator, even as he called on the people to imbibe his principles and values.
No fewer than two papers, entitled: “The Ogoni Environment: Our Common Heritage,” and “Environmental Degradation in Ogoniland and non-Remediation of the Despoiled Land: The Human Rights Implication,” were presented respectively by Dr Giadom Ferdinand of the Department of Geology, UNIPORT, and Duson Nuleera Ambrose of the African Centre for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Education.
Abe, who delivered the keynote address, said: “The clean-up of’ Ogoniland can no longer and by any stretch of the imagination, be viewed as mere rhetoric because as we speak over $170 million has been released and paid into an Ogoni Trust Fund.
“In the entire nation, there is no Trust Fund that has that amount of money, except the Ogoni Trust Fund. We must, however, be vigilant to ensure that this money is not filtered away and that it is absolutely used to the expectations of our people.
“We must be determined to achieve those results. So the rhetoric will now come in the sense of how we actually handle these issues to move forward. Hence, the impact of the clean-up will be felt not just by those who have power and who have access to the instruments of power.
“The major impact of the clean-up should be felt by the Ogoni people, who actually suffered the degradation that brought about this.”
