After its criminal abandonment for four years, President Muhammadu Buhari has dusted off the report of the United Nations Environmental Programme on the remediation of Ogoniland, degraded by decades of oil pollution. An amendment has been made to the Official Gazette establishing the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project, as part of a new governance framework. The HYPREP now has a Governing Council, a Board of Trustees and the Project Management. This is cheery news as the move gnaws at the heart of neglect and militancy for which the oil-rich Niger Delta has become notorious.
Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, said in a statement that the various stakeholders had agreed to contribute $10 million within 30 days of the appointment of members of the board for the project. Not relenting in ensuring that the Federal Government acted on the UNEP report, its Executive Director, the UNEP Special Representatives for Ogoniland, and other stakeholders made some recommendations to Buhari, shortly after he assumed office.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan, who hails from the Niger Delta, initiated the UNEP study of oil pollution in the area. The report was hailed upon submission in 2011, with assurance from Jonathan that government would study it to explore partnership with the oil companies towards its implementation. Ironically, it turned out to be a policy finagling.
The UNEP assessment of Ogoniland, which lasted for 14 months, involved a survey of 122 kilometres of pipelines right of way, review of 5,000 medical records, soil analysis, examination of 200 locations, study of 142 groundwater, 780 boreholes and the participation of over 23,000 locals at town hall meetings. And the findings were as shocking as they revealed lack of governance in the country.
For instance, it was discovered that some families’ sources of drinking water had been contaminated with benzene – a known carcinogen or cancer causing agent. Its level in the water was 900 times higher than the World Health Organisation’s standard. This is a huge public health hazard. With 8cm layer of refined oil floating on groundwater, aquatic life lost, farmland overwhelmed by oil spills, and drinking water contaminated with high levels of hydrocarbons, Ogoni is a study in human tragedy.
Going by the UNEP report, which recommended that $1 billion should be contributed by the oil companies and the government for the environmental remediation project, spanning 30 years, the $10 million to be paid by the stakeholders will not get the work up to scratch. This reality, therefore, demands that both the government and stakeholders need to rethink on how to embrace the challenge ahead.
As events in other jurisdictions evince, government dictates the pace; and this was what happened in respect of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the United States. President Barack Obama ensured that the environment was cleaned up; and through a raft of litigation, the company agreed to pay $18.7 billion in federal, state and local compensations. This is a record fine, which it began paying from May 2010. According to BP, it had paid up to $11.6 billion as of December 31, 2014.
In all, the pollution has now cost BP a total of $54.6 billion. The company’s chief executive, Bob Dudley, in bemoaning the loss, said, “The numbers are huge but we can now plan for the future. That is a state we have not been in for five years.” It will take 18 years for the corporation to finish the payment.
Back home, Ogoni is just a fraction of the large swathes of territories that form the oil-producing axis in Nigeria that suffer the Ogoni fate. Clearly, it is irresponsible governance in the country that created the mess. It is indefensible that the oil companies use standards in their operations here that are different from the template they use in their home countries in Europe and America.
Therefore, the Buhari Ogoni initiative will be meaningless if the oil companies are allowed to continue with their double standards, or for the government itself to still be indifferent to the strict enforcement of regulations. As ultra-sensitive as the US is to the rights of its people, and the protection of its environment, Obama believes the US should learn from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. He said, “So one of the lessons we have learned from the spill is that we need better regulations, better safety standards, and better enforcement…” This is a huge lesson for Nigeria.
Ogoni holds Shell responsible for much of its environmental degradation. The conflation of militancy in the area and the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa, an Ogoni leader, by the late Sani Abacha military junta in 1995, over the struggle, forced the company out of operation in the area for 17 years. But its common defence has always been that oil pipe vandalism, illegal oil refining and bunkering activities are at the heart of the mess there.
Whatever the issues are, the fact is that the UNEP report and Buhari’s response to the challenge should serve as a strategic policy shift on oil companies operation in Nigeria; and how they can truly help in improving the quality of the lives and livelihood of these oil producing areas now and in the future.
