Special Report By Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku
On the wet morning of June 18th 2020, the Environmental Rights Action (ERA), a leading voice on behalf of the environment invited journalists to the Precious Palm Hotel in Benin City. This was supposed to be a ‘normal’ press briefing to unveil a report titled, No Clean Up, No Justice.
But nobody was prepared for the quantum of compelling revelations and evidences that ERA Executive Director, D. Godwin Uyi Ojo frontloaded to journalists and civil society stakeholders that morning on the continuing effects of pollution in Ogoniland.
Dr. Ojo premised the revelations at the press conference against the backdrop of the 50-year struggle of the Ogoni people against oil pollution and the violation of human rights, leading to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that recommended the clean-up of Ogoniland with an initial fund of USD$1billion to be paid by oil companies operating there.
According to Dr. Ojo, the first attempt to clean up all UN-identified polluted sites in Ogoniland’s mostly historical and ancestral sites was through a Hydrocarbons Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) from 2010 to 2015, and which was a huge flop.
Under the administration of Muhammadu Buhari however, progress has been at a snail pace. First, it took the Buhari government 19 whole months to create the second HYPREP, and for it to resume operations later in 2017.
Dr. Ojo said ERA is convinced that the reason the federal government HYPREP is a monumental failure is that it lacks the capacity to conduct a proper clean-up, even with the millions of dollars at its disposal.
“After years of promises without proper action, and decades of pollution, the people of Ogoniland are not only sick of dirty drinking water, oil contaminated fish and toxic fumes, they are sick of waiting for justice.
“They are dying by the day. Communities still do not have access to clean drinking water, and they are still forced to continue drinking and washing with water that is contaminated with benzene a known carcinogen,” Dr. Ojo said.
A UN assessment has indicated that HYPREP “is not designed, not structured to implement a project as complex and sizable as the Ogoniland cleanup. In addition, there are huge financial and administrative bottlenecks.”
According to an ERA report in 2019, Ogoni Clean Up: Monitoring & Progress Report 2019; How HYPREP Deviates from UNEP Recommendations, several institutions like Shell, NNPC and other operators like the Eleme Refinery have contributed something close to $177million from 2016 to 2018 for the clean-up plan.
Apart from this figure, there is a USD$360million that HYPREP has received. But owing to serial bureaucratic bottlenecks by HYPREP, it is yet to make a requisition of US$200million due it for 2020 for the clean-up of Ogoniland.
“At the rate it is disbursing funds, it will take HYPREP 100 years to utilize its 5-year budget,” Dr. Ojo said during the Press conference and report launch of Wednesday, June 18 2020.
That apart, Dr. Ojo said that there has been no serious attempt to put together a credible public health registry or an environmental monitoring framework. A proposed Ogoni clean-up and rehabilitation center which was supposed to provide capacity building and empowerment for the Ogoni to drive the clean-up process is still in limbo.
More so, ERA insists that 21 sites currently being cleaned by HYPREP cover only 11% of the total area identified by UNEP. Among the litany of issues bedeviling the Ogoni Clean-up process include the fact that HYPREP is yet to commence certain bid process for so-called complex sites.
Also, it has neglected to conduct its operations in a transparent and accountable manner, and by May 2020, researchers observed that many of the so-called 21 less complex sites had closed down while other sites scaled down their workforce due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.
Yet, what is most worrisome in all of this is in the issue of conflict of interest. While Shell is a known perpetrator of the large scale pollution in Ogoniland, members of its staff are seconded to HYPREP to provide ‘expertise’ in the cleaning process. Shell is also a member of the Board of Trustees and Governing Council of HYPREP.
Even though the Ogoni disaster surpasses a similar incident in scope, duration and dimension of impact, the Deepwater oil spill of April 20, 2010 involving BP have been handled very differently and successfully too.
According to David M. Uhlmann of the University of Michigan, published in THE CONVERSATION, the massive spill spewed more than 3 million barrels of oil, and for three months BP struggled to contain it.
Considered the worst environmental disaster in US history, Uhlmann said that “BP paid dearly for the reckless corporate culture of cost-cutting and excessive risk-taking,” BP then paid $60billion in criminal and civil penalties, natural resource damages, and economic claims and clean-up costs.
Over that singular incident, BP had to reach an agreement with the US Justice Department to plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, obstruction of Congress and violations of the Clean Water and Migratory Bird Treaty Acts.
BP also paid $4.5billion in criminal penalty, higher than the $125million paid by Exxon in 1990 over the Valdez oil spill. That was not all that BP paid of the Deepwater Affair: in 2015, the Justice Department and Gulf coast states reached a record civil settlement with BP that totaled over $20billion, including a $5.5 billion civil penalty under the Clean Water Act, $8.1billion in natural resource damages and $5.9billion in payments to state and local governments.
BP eventually had to cough out another $15billion in clean-up costs and another $20billion in economic damages to companies and individuals harmed by the spill.
While the Obama administration imposed a brief moratorium on offshore drilling, and reorganized relevant offices within the Interior Department and enacted safety rules to prevent future oil spills, ERA is convinced though that “the clean-up of Ogoni land is failing and lagging behind because the HYPREP lacks the capacity to conduct a proper clean-up, and make Shell pay the way the US government made BP pay.”
ERA recommends that the Buhari “government should reorganize and completely overhaul the HYPREP to ensure that it is able to deliver a truly significant clean up in Ogoniland,” In addition, ERA has urged government to introduce legislation for transparency and accountability in HYPREP, and called for a global treaty to hold corporations accountable for human rights violations and environmental harm in Ogoniland and the Niger Delta.
Colin Roche of Friends of the Earth, FoE, Europe, corroborates the view on a global treaty to hold oil corporations like Shell to account.
“Without urgent action there will be no justice. While oil companies like Shell spend millions green washing their image, tens of thousands of people continue to suffer from their pollution and negligence.
“European governments like the UK, the Netherlands, France and Italy must act to support a truly effective clean up and ensure these companies are held accountable for the devastating pollution in the Niger Delta,” Roche posited.
Shell’s activities in Ogoniland had polluted an area of natural beauty and an ecosystem of coral reefs, leading to several protests against the company. A despotic Nigerian military government arrested and hanged the hero of the peaceful struggle, Ken Saro-Wiwa on November 10, 1995.
“The discovery of oil in Ogoniland has brought huge suffering for its people. Over many years we have documented how Shell has failed to clean up contaminated from spills and it is a scandal that this has not yet happened.
“The Pollution is leading to serious human rights impacts – on people’s health and ability to access food and clean water. Shell must not get away with this – we will continue to fight until every last trace of oil is removed from Ogoniland,” Osai Ojigho, an official of Amnesty International said.
The ERA report, No Clean Up, No Justice: an evaluation of the Implementation of UNEP’s Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland nine Years On, is a 39-page document and a sequel to another report, Ogoni Clean Up: Monitoring & Progress Report 2019. Alltimepost.com will carry out a review of the reports subsequently.
Etemiku is Alltimepost.com Special Correspondent in Benin City, Nigeria, and editor in Chief of Bob MajiriOghene Communications. 08156171133, majirioghene@protonmail.com
