Lucky Omas
Warri, Delta State — A directive by the federal government that Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and its subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC should take over OML 11 in Ogoniland, Rivers state, has been described as insensitivity on the part of the government capable of triggering fresh crisis in Ogoni area.
Executive Director, Heath of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF Mr. Nnimo Bassey and his counterpart of We the People, Mr. Ken Henshaw in a statement said the federal government should retract the directive and rather focus on building the environment of Ogoni for the people.
The statement in part, “We consider this instruction by the Presidency insensitive, ill-advised and capable of inflaming suspicions and conflict in an area that is already very fragile and prone to crisis.
“It is worrying why the government will decide to resume oil extraction in Ogoniland when the pollution of the last decades is yet to be cleaned and the recommendations of UNEP have not been fully complied with. The action of the government at this time gives the impression that it only flagged off the Ogoni Clean up through HYPREP in order to purchase the goodwill to resume oil extraction in the area. How else does one explain the fact that a site supposedly being cleaned up will resume full oil extraction activities with all the pollution that comes with it?”
“HOMEF and ‘We the People’ also note that the demands of the Ogoni people which led to the abuses they suffered in the hands of the Nigerian Military in the 1990s, and the termination of oil operations in the area, have still not been addressed.
“We fe