By Alltimepost.com
Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has warned against environment pollution and called for an urgent cleanup of areas polluted by oil exploration and pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta to prevent diseases that may be induced by such environmental degradation.
He expressed the fear that if nothing was done urgently there would be no resources to reclaim the environment from the damages being done by pollution by the time the country runs out of oil.
Oshiomhole made the assertions on Tuesday while speaking during a courtesy visit to him by the Special Adviser to the President and Coordinator, President Amnesty Programme, retired Brig-Gen Paul Boroh.
The Governor said oil companies do not pollute their environment in developed countries and wondered why they come to Nigeria and compromise “our waterways and destroy our lands and compromise the environment, creating a challenge.”
“My fear is that, the damage we are doing to the environment today, by the time oil dries up, there will be no resources to reclaim the environment.”
“I am sure if nothing is done in the next couple of years, we will begin to see some kind of strange diseases including all kind of cancers and environmentally-induced diseases that will shorten the average life span of the people that live in those affected areas.”
The Governor said people should be discouraged from vandalizing oil pipelines, maintaining that everything must be done to educate and enlighten the people to recognize that vandalizing pipelines, resorting to illegal refineries in the crude way, “the damage they are doing will impoverish our people for a long time.”
“We must encourage our young ones not to resort to violence or resort to vandalizing our pipelines because that would just compound the poverty with huge health implications for our people.”
He acknowledged the effort to clean up the President Amnesty Programme’s records and ensure that public fund is used specifically for those it is meant to benefit and doesn’t just become a window for diversion.
“Whatever support we can extend to you in Edo State, you can take it for granted and I am convinced that everybody must support you to succeed in the interest of our sub-region,” Oshiomhole assured.
“We are trying under the South-South BRACED commission to develop an economic bloc so that we can take advantage of our natural endowment to integrate the economy of our states and ensure that people concentrate in their area of comparative advantage and maximize the enormous opportunities that exist in our sub region,” he hinted.
Earlier, retired Brigadier General Boroh said he decided to start his working tour to the Niger Delta Region in Edo State to bear witness to “your joint strength in transforming the ancient city of Benin while retaining its unique pre-historic assets and cultural heritage.”
“I am here to see you as a major stakeholder and political leader in the region of Niger Delta and I am also here to apprise you with the development of the amnesty program,” he said.
According to him, the Agency is at the last phase of the program; the reintegration phase, to achieve sustainable reintegration of ex-agitators, adding that a reasonable number has been empowered and their capacities have also been developed. “All we have to do is to ensure that they are reintegrated,” he said.
He referred to the recent complaint by some of the beneficiaries of the program about lack of payment for their schools and that it was due to this noble policy of central control system to ensure sanity.
“We do our paper work without problems in our offices but when it get to the Central Bank, they take their time painstakingly to ensure what is released is what is expected at that end. It is to curb fraud,” he said.
Boroh said he observed too much of mismanagement upon his assumption of office, “so I like this policy and I tell the institutions where the beneficiaries are schooling as well as the beneficiaries to be patient, their monies will definitely come to them. We are taking our time to ensure that what is released is what is expected at that end.”
