Activists condemn FG over delays in Ogoni clean-up process

Activists under the platform of the Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) have decried the delays encountered over the clean-up of polluted Ogoni land for which President Muhammadu Buhari constituted a Governing Council at the inception of his administration.

Speaking to journalists yesterday in Lagos, Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, Dr. Godwin Uyi Ojo lamented that it was taking too long for the Federal Government to address the challenges of oil exploration in the Niger Delta and the cleanup of Ogoni land as recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNHEP) in its assessment released to the Nigerian government in 2011.

He said it took exactly five years after the report was submitted to the government before Shell Oil Company and the Federal Government accepted responsibility for the exercise, adding that it took pressures from civil society groups before the cleanup exercise was flagged off in 2016 in Bodo City, Rivers State by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

“The expectation that greeted the ceremony which had the Ogoni and hundreds of civil society groups in support has however dimmed barely a year as the promised cleanup exercise is still bugged down by bureaucracy and controversies. The plan for the cleanup is still shrouded in secrecy and has not been formally subjected to public scrutiny.