Environmental Parliament Tackles Nigeria on UNEP Report

Ogoni Oil Pollution: Environmental Parliament Tackles Nigeria on UNEP Report

An Environmental Parliament in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, has faulted the Federal Government's approach to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on oil pollution in Ogoniland.

Participants at the parliament which was organised by the Environmental Rights Action (ERA), were drawn from Niger Delta communities, civil society organizations, UNEP, media and the academia. The forum was also attended by a representative of Rivers State Ministry of Environment and Oxfam-Novib.

The parliament undertook a critical review of the UNEP report. In a two-page communiqué that was jointly signed by the Head, Legal Resources/Democracy Outreach of ERA, Prince Chima Williams, Executive Director of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (IHRHL), Mr. Anyakwee Nsirimovu, and the Women Leader of Goi, an Ogoni community, Mrs. Veronica Kobani, the paricipants said government was delaying the implementation of the report by setting up series of committees.

According to them, “instead of setting up committees and counter committees to review the report which findings and recommendations are unambiguous, the Federal Government of Nigeria should commence immediate implementation of the recommendations of the UNEP Report as Nigerians will not have the luxury of waiting for them for eternity”.

They, however, observed as follows:

• That despite the short comings of the UNEP report, it confirms and validates the struggles of Niger Delta communities against the destruction of the Niger Delta ecosystem by oil company operations.
• That the Nigerian government is perfecting the art of delay through the setting up of successive committees to study the clear report and recommendations of the UNEP report.
• That the UNEP report clearly portrays the state of the environment in the entire Niger Delta and local communities across the region should own the report and utilize every suitable means to ensure that the recommendations of the report are implemented.
• Commended the efforts of ERA especially relating to organising the meeting; community sensitisation, mobilisation, human rights protection and defence and the ongoing review of the UNEP report and called for the continuation of this parliament.
• That government is entirely responsible for the impunity with which oil companies have operated in the Niger Delta region and the consequent criminal devastation of the region because of its failure to enforce local laws.

At the end of the highly interactive review, participants further resolved that the Niger Delta communities should be sensitized and mobilized to mount pressure on the Nigerian government to embark on immediate clean up of not only the Ogoni environment but also the entire Niger Delta communities.

The parliament called on the international community to monitor and ensure compliance with international best practices in the implementation of the recommendations of the Ogoni UNEP environmental assessment report, and also on civil society organisations and communities not to see the UNEP report as only relating to Ogoni but Niger Delta as a whole and should push advocacy around the report and its implementation to ensure that the report does not go the way of other reports.

They called for the review of the law of evidence in such a way that the burden of proof should be removed from the victim of environmental degradation and placed on the polluter and on government to grow the political will to compel the oil companies to work with local communities to clean up the environment.

They said as many as possible Niger Delta communities and individuals should seize the opportunity of the indictment of Shell by the report to institute court actions to seek for compensations and damages for the over 50 years of destruction of their environment and source of livelihoods.

In the mean time, Rivers state Commissioner for Water Resources and Rural Development, Ms. Patricia Simon-Hart, has said that the state government has so far supplied over three million litres of water to Ogale, an Ogoni community, since the release of the UNEP report.

The commissioner who made this known to AkanimoReports on Friday, said the gesture was in response to the UNEP report on the contamination of water in Ogoni by oil majors.

ENDS

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