Williams, the 2022 Goldman Environmental award winner for Africa, while speaking in Port Harcourt, yesterday, said the IOCs are incapacitated by materials and resources to tackle the biggest environmental problems already on the ground, let alone new ones.
Recall that the Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Mele Kyari, had, in March this year, said IOCs divesting from Nigeria’s upstream sector must address abandonment and decommissioning of oil assets as part of the criteria for divestment.
But Williams pointed out that in almost all the explosions that occurred in recent times, the oil companies were unable to follow stipulated processes adequately, warning that divestment is double jeopardy for Nigeria because the IOCs are divesting offshores where they cannot be monitored.
He said: “The divestment is double jeopardy for Nigeria because these entities are divesting offshore where it is difficult for us to monitor what they are doing and yet the government is still giving them incentives to develop their facilities and activities deep offshore; that should not happen again. It is double jeopardy for Nigeria and Nigerian citizens.
“We can’t continue to work the same way and expect different results. We must create opportunities for synergy to work together to get results. If we collectively work together, we will achieve greater results. This is our country, we don’t have any other country, so if you destroy it, you have destroyed all of us and we can’t watch anyone destroy us.”
Williams said the steps to be taken to change the system must be more inclusive, more sustainable and more people-centred and result-oriented procedures.
“One of the things we’re asking for is that before you divest, put down environmental remediation bond, based on an amount that will be discussed and agreed by relevant MDAs working together with select CSOs, community leaders and both the divesting and investing entity because the environmental remediation bond should be provided by both entities.
“Secondly we must recognise the place of the community, under whose feet these resources are extracted, as critical stakeholders host communities will be involved in the design, development and implementation of the divestment process,” he said.
