The people of Niger Delta have called on President Mu­hammadu Buhari to go beyond rhetoric and ensure immediate implementation of his directive on clean up of Ogoni land and extend same to other oil pro­ducing communities af­fected by environmental degradation.
This was the resolution of the concerned stakeholders who converged on the Nation­al Theater, Iganmu, Lagos, on Friday to mark the 20th an­niversary of the execution of environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa and others dur­ing their struggles for envi­ronmental justice. The Guest Speaker on the
occasion, Mr. Eifye Bribena, in his paper entitled: Overcoming the tri­angle of irresponsibility in the Niger Delta Environment, blamed successive govern­ments, oil companies as well as their host communities for the absence of sustainable en­vironment plan for the Niger Delta region.
He expressed skepticism over the commitment of the Buhari administration to fron­tally deal with the environmen­tal issues causing agitations in the Niger Delta region. Accord­ing to him, despite the Federal Government’s approval for the release of $10 million for the cleanup of Ogoni land, noth­ing has been done four months after.
His words: “The euphoria that greeted the directive by the current government on the UNEP report on Ogoni land is misplaced. The approval to release a paltry sum of $10 m shows how irresponsible the state has become concerning the environment.