Skip to main content

RE:UNEP Launches Assessment of Oil-Contaminated Sites in Niger Delta

December 2, 2009

Dear Nick Nuttall: A warm greeting to you and your team. I hope all is well with you. Meanwhile, I stumbled over the report below credited to UNEP, with your contacts and those of Silja Halle listed. The content therefore compelled this letter seeking clarification. I am an Ogoni-American and based in the U.S. And, as an activist I have been monitoring the proposed cleaning exercise like most activists around the world. There are some difficulties you are facing in attempting to conduct the clean-up. These difficulties are worth having, I believe, for a great job that will stamp your name and the UN in gold to be undertaken and  completed.



It is a challenge made complex by the government though simple and honest demand by MOSOP, which is in the best interest of the Ogoni people, the Federal Government, and $hell Oil. It will serve as a foundation/model to the volatile Niger Delta and other Nigerians, even Africa in general. The demand based on my discussion with people in Ogoni, and the newspaper reports from Nigeria, is that the new MOSOP president Mr. Goodluck Diigbo, is demanding that "due process," which will involve the indigenous people, etc. be strictly observed. Due process should  allow for years of request for Environmental Assessment, Social and Health Impact Studies, which Ogonis have peacefully demanded under Ken Saro-Wiwa. You should or may be aware of how Saro-Wiwa and others were hanged for making this fair demand.

And, note that these assessments have not been conducted since the discovery of oil in Ogoni/Niger Delta. It is obvious this reckless practice can not be allowed in Europe, $hell's home region and America, etc. The studies are therefore proper to follow through and as preventive measure. They will take into account the damages done to the environment, kinds, depth and duration of remediation. Compensation assessment in terms of the degree of damage to land and the deprivation of peasant's sources of livelihood is part of it. The social and health damages are also involved considering the fact that this degradation took place at close proximity of human habitation. Implying, that the people must have been injured in health, which may lead to social and psychological/psychiatric effects. These assessments and research are very important and necessary and should be done once-and-for-all.

If UNEP move on to conducting any cleaning without first assessing these damages and adequate compensatory dialogue mapped out before the actual cleaning, you will experience opposition from Ogonis and your efforts, if genuine would be in vain. The above is the moral and just thing to do, and they conform to acceptable international standard. Finally, there are newspaper reports ("The Nation" of Nov. 29, for example) that says Mr. Amaechi of River State-the so-called governor-has threatened to arrest the MOSOP president and other Ogonis for demanding their right to due process, etc. This is unfortunate and shameful because instead of protecting the citizens the Nigerian model is to protect the foreign companies.

Amaechi's plan, I think, and as may be dictated by the government and $hell Oil is to hastily conduct this clean-up through the backdoor to erase all kinds of damage assessment, thereby avoiding compensation, which the reports says, he had vowed will not be paid. Nevertheless, is UNEP following Amaechi, the Federal Government and $hell's ill dictates instead of working as an independent body willing to do the right thing? Or the alleged "UNEP's final assessment report expected to be published by the end of 2010," as reported below is a turn-around on the side of the UN agency to meet the demands of the Ogoni people? I look forward to hear from you.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Ben Wuloo Ikari.



 

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });