Ogoni Youths have called on President Muhammadu Buhari to order the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to investigate financial misappropriation and corruption at the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, (HYPREP)
This follows the revelation by the NNPC, through its Chief Operating Officer for downstream, Mr Roland Ewubare, at the House of Representatives Committee on Environment meeting held at National Assembly in Abuja on 17th February that the NNPC, SPDC and its Joint Venture Partners, have paid HYPREP a total of US$360,000,000 which is equivalent to One Hundred and Twenty-Nine Billion, Six Hundred Million Naira (N129,600,000,000.00).
The youth group said the investigation should be carried out urgently to build citizens’ confidence in the anti-corruption campaign of the federal government and to save Ogoni Environment.
In a statement by Comrade Yamaabana Legborsi, President-General of Ogoni Youths Federation, OYF, the group reiterated its earlier warning to NNPC and its JV partners not to release further funds meant for the implementation of the Ogoni environmental clean-up project to HYPREP until a proper account has been made over US$360,000,000 received thus far.
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The statement read in part: “It is unfathomable that with US$360,000,000 (N129,600,000,000 billion) in the kitty HYPREP already, Ogoni communities are still condemned to drinking, cooking, bathing and fishing in heavily contaminated water with benzene and other carcinogenic materials in concentration over 900 times above the acceptable maximum as stipulated in the WHO guidelines. The reality of the Ogoni clean-up is that there are more lies than truth surrounding the exercise”.
Recall that UNEP identified a number of emergency public health and other fundamental measures that must be first addressed. These measures inter alia include Provision of adequate sources of drinking water to Ogoni people; Ensuring that everyone who has consumed water from contaminated sources is requested to undertake a comprehensive medical examination by physicians knowledgeable about the possible adverse effects of the hydrocarbons and benzene; Bringing all sources of ongoing contamination, including artisanal refining, to a swift end before the cleanup, and for that purpose, the sum of $10 million was recommended for the provision of alternative employment for Ogoni youths; Setting up of an Integrated Contaminated Soil Management Centre (ICSMC) comprising an Incinerator, Thermal Unit, Soil Washing Unit and a Contaminated Water Treatment Unit. The Centre, which should drive the clean-up, is expected to be a modern industrial enterprise in Ogoniland that would provide jobs for thousands of Ogoni people;
OYF lamented that rather than commencing the implementation of the UNEP recommendations with the proposed emergency measures, “What we have come to observe, and much to our chagrin, is that after the release of each tranche of funds by the International Oil Companies and the NNPC to HYPREP for the clean-up project, the expenditure pattern has not only been fraudulent and opaque but is completely out of sync with the UNEP recommendations.
OYF said further that “In this regard, we recall that after the first announced release of the sum of $10million by the International Oil Companies (IOCs) and further release of $170million, there were cases of financial misappropriation and diversion and spree of cleanup contracts awards to unqualified firms, which prompted the Ogoni youths through the Ogoni Youth Federation to institute a legal action against the Federal Ministry of Environment, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) and ORS at the Federal High Court, in suit no. FHC/PHC/122/2018. The case is before the court.
“The complete alienation of the Ogoni indigenous participation in the process of the clean-up appears the final nail in the Ogoni coffin and sends a dangerous signal to the World that the cleanup process is another gimmick and ploy to further push the already distraught Ogoni population to economic extinction. The irony is that having deprived Ogoni of every good thing by Nigeria and its institutional collaborators, the only project meant for her survival has been diverted.
“The managers of the cleanup, represented by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) and its Governing Board hibernates under the cover of the Federal Government and one Mr Mike Cowing who claim to be a staff of the United Nations Environment Program to slight the Ogoni people while giving the impression that all is well.
“Finally, we call upon lovers of justice, friends of Ogoni, Civil Society Organizations and Ogoni people to rise up and fight relentlessly for the right of the people. Our cause is just, and God being our helper, we shall emerge victorious over the forces of greed, wickedness and obduracy. A united people can never be defeated”.
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