…Stakeholders harp on smooth implementation of UNEP Report
Port Harcourt – Prof Nanibarini Zabbey, the new Project Coordinator appointed by the Federal Government for the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, is to fast track the implementation of the UNEP Report on Ogoniland.
His appointment followed President Muhammadu Buhari’s approval of the termination of the appointment of Dr. Ferdinand Giadom as HYPREP co-ordinator.
Prof Zabbey is a renowned environmentalist and hydrobiologist with extensive background on remediation-related activities, including bio-monitoring and restoration ecology. He was until the appointment, the coordinator, Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development, CEHRD, which aims to drive the Ogoni Clean-up project to greater heights.
Meanwhile, reactions have begun to emerge on the appointment, with stakeholders in Ogoni applauding the appointment, but lamenting that HYPREP in recent time has witnessed too many leadership changes and that instability of leadership could derail the project.
Executive Director of YEAC-Nigeria, Mr Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, expressed confident in the ability and capacity of Prof. Zabbey while the Paramount Ruler of Dee-Eewa in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, Chief Magnus Lezor Edoo, described the appointment as “putting a round peg in a round hole”.
Fyneface also charged the incoming administration on May 29 to ensure stability of leadership in HYPREP, in order to fast track a smooth implementation of the UNEP Report in Ogoniland
Also, the President of Ogoni Youth Federation, Legborsi Yamaabana, advised the new HYPREP Project Coordinator to consider his appointment as a call to service and urged him to steer the ship of HYPREP to an enviable height that would give credence to the struggle of their forebears and leave a footprint on the sands of time.
Yamaabana enjoined the HYPREP boss to develop an inclusive roadmap and run a people-oriented administration that would make a clear departure from the battered history of HYPREP, assuring him that Ogoni youths would give him all the necessary support by providing a rancour-free atmosphere to enable him deliver on the mandates given to him by the president and the extant laws of the land.
The Paramount Ruler of Dee-Eewa, Chief Edoo described the appointment of Prof. Zabbey as well deserved and expressed optimism that he would make the people proud.
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