Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Lawmaker representing Degema/Bonny Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Farah Dagogo, has raised the alarm over persistent environmental pollution in the Niger Delta region, arising from exploration and production of crude oil and gas by oil multinationals.
Farah Dagogo explained that pollution in the region has become so incessant and with no solution in sight, as the people are now forced to hopelessly accept it as a way of life.
The lawmaker in his speech to mark the 2020 World Environmental Day, lamented that the unending adverse environmental pollution caused by oil exploration has rendered the Niger Delta region unhealthy for its inhabitants.
Dagogo explained that that it was not only human lives that were at risk, but species of freshwater organisms and those of marine, as well as the habitats were being affected.
He advocated for a strategic economic development that would secure the future of the region’s unborn generation, in order to rewrite the sorry narrative of the Niger Delta environment and put an end to the devastation.
“Environmental pollution has become so incessant and with no solution in sight that the people have hopelessly accepted it as a way of life, even though it has been reputed to be the cause of varying degrees of health challenges and deaths in the oil rich Niger Delta region.
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“As we join the rest of the world to celebrate World Environment Day, it is imperative and paramount that we draw the attention of the world to the suffocating health conditions we are experiencing in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
“As custodians of the largest oil rich wetland in the world, the Niger Delta region had long been debated, documented and discarded by exploitative oil explorations that endorsed and enforced the incessant pollution of our riparian heritage while the people of the creeks sit in limbo, idling away in hopelessness, huddled together in socioeconomic inequalities as the treasure of our natural habitats is robbed by the greenhouse flares of big oil interest.
“As the world marks World Environmental Day, we call for the promotion of Green-blue economic development footprints to secure the long awaited carbon neutral future for children of the depraved Niger Delta Region.”