Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — As the World Environment Day is marked all over the world today, the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre has charged the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, to provide alternative employment for youths engaged in artisanal refining activities in Ogoniland.
The Executive Director of YEAC-Nigeria, Mr Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, said the call was imperative, in order to forestall re-pollution of Ogoniland, so that the ongoing Ogoni clean-up project will not be an exercise in futility.
Fyneface said out of the $360million reportedly already received by HYPREP from the Joint Venture partners, the sum of $10million should be budgeted solely for alternative livelihoods for youths, such as scholarships, training and skills development for modular refineries, clean-up processes as well as for employment in multinational companies.
He called on youths in Rivers State, Niger Delta and the country at large, who are involved in artisanal refining activities to stop, embrace modular refineries, renewable energy, other alternative livelihood opportunities and channel their energy towards environmental sustainability actions for the sake of our “Only One Earth.”
“HYPREP should use the $10million budgeted in the UNEP Report on Ogoni (2011) as stated on Table 53, page 227 and serial number 10 of the Report which is currently in HYPREP coffer by virtue of the $360million communicated as so far received from Joint Venture partners to prepare and provide ‘Alternative Employment to those in Artisanal Refining‘ to prevent re-pollution during and after the cleanup.
“Some of the ways of providing the alternatives would include youth training for skilled participation in the Cleanup project and processes; preparing artisanal refiners in Ogoni communities for Modular Refineries; skills development and acquisition for employability in the NLNG Train-7 Project and educational scholarships within and outside the country among others”.
The Environmentalist also called on HYPREP contractors handling the Ogoni cleanup exercise and water projects to speed-up the processes, ensure that the best technology, global best practices and standards are adopted in performing their statutory duties in the area.
This he said “would fast-track the restoration of the Ogoni environment in a timely manner for the traditional livelihoods of the people including faming and fishing activities destroyed by decades of crude oil pollution to thrive again.”
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