A group of Civil Society Organizations in Rivers State have come out in support of the ongoing cleanup in Ogoni land.
They say fixing the messed-up environment is going to take a long time because the damage from pollution is just huge.
These CSOs held a press conference in Port Harcourt where they slammed a recent protest against HYPREP’s leadership. The group claims the protest was meant to discredit HYPREP and slow down the cleanup process.
During the event, the CSOs accused some protesters of not truly representing Ogoni civil society groups. In fact, they argued that those folks staged a demonstration in Abuja, wrongly bashing both HYPREP and its leader, Professor Nenibarini Zabbey. The CSOs said more protests were being planned based on alleged failure to perform.
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Mike Gbarale, the Rainbow Watch and Development Centre’s head, stated that the criticisms thrown at HYPREP were unfounded. He sees the whole protest as a hit job, aiming to ruin the current leaders’ reputation.
The coalition, consisting of SWAYA, the Centre for Gender Equity and Development, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Lekeh Development Foundation, Pius Dukor Foundation, Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development, Rainbow Watch and Development Centre, Miideekor, Environmental Rights Action, and Defence for Human Rights and Democracy, showed faith in HYPREP’s leadership.
They believe that while it’s important for civil society organizations to push for transparency and accountability, any critique of HYPREP needs to be backed by solid facts and credible involvement, not by what they see as self-serving attacks.
The coalition added that cleaning up Ogoni would take a lot longer than a few years. Considering the huge extent of pollution in the soil, groundwater, mangroves, creeks, and shorelines, it’s clear that this will be a lengthy cleanup effort.
The groups stated that according to the United Nations Environment Programme report, fixing Ogoni land would take more than 20 years. So, it wouldn’t make sense to judge the project’s success anytime soon.
While there are still challenges, HYPREP’s current team has shown progress and deserves continued focus and support to see the project through.
Both the government and public were advised to ignore claims meant to sabotage HYPREP. These efforts warn that undermining the clean-up could ruin chances of restoring the community’s way of life and their environment.
Speaking up at the same event, Friday Nbani, the Executive Director of Lekeh Development Foundation, pleaded for unity among Ogoni residents. He pushed everyone to back the cleanup efforts rather than argue internally about how the program’s implemented.
