Gambari’s Meeting: Group Laments S’south Govs’ Failure To Mention Oil Companies Atrocities In N’Delta

The group, Niger Delta Initiative Austria (NDIA) has lamented the failure of South-south Governors and stakeholders in their recent meeting with presidential delegation to mention the many years of environmental injustice melted out to the degraded Niger Delta environment by oil companies.

NDIA, in a statement by its founder and executive director, Nyherovwo Ochuko Eriema, said that the failure to mention alleged environmental injustice melted out on the region by the multinational oil companies like Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, was stemmed from the nonchalant attitude of leaders who are yet to take the polluting of the Niger Delta as an act of war.

The statement reads; “We observed that the region’s stakeholders and governors failed to mention the environmental war being waged against the South-South region by the multinational oil companies.

“It leaves us heartbroken that the much talked about cleanup of the region was not even mentioned. It further reveals the nonchalant attitude of our leaders who are yet to take the polluting of the Niger Delta as an act of war.

“It makes us see them as collaborators rather than stakeholders. It diminishes the sacrifices and painstaking efforts, finances and time activists like us have invested in the struggle”.

Eriema said that for over a decade, his group has been at the vanguard of the campaign to raise international awareness about the environmental catastrophe that is taking place in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

According to him, most of the campaigns done by the group were facilitated by the Hope for Niger Delta Campaign in the Netherlands (HNDC), founded by Comrade Sunny Ofehe who has been “instrumental to the progress and the sustenance of our campaign”.

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“It is worth mentioning that these two nonprofit organizations are the only NGOs in this part of the world that have been spearheading the campaign for a cleaner and greener Niger Delta region.

“Therefore, the executives and members of the Niger Delta Initiative Austria (NDIA), concluded that it would be both unfitting and cowardice if we remain silent about these issues.

“Let us be clear that the Niger Delta is no longer one of the most polluted regions of the world. It has become the most polluted and also, the most underdeveloped oil-producing areas of the world.

“Environmental impairment is first to the Niger Delta problems, as it has impeded rural economic pursuits and sat a threat to sustainable growth. This phase of our problems is too important not to be on the demands presented to the Presidential Delegation.

“There was no mention of the nefarious activities of multinational oil companies like Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and others on how to stop them from implementing the worse management practices they perpetrated upon the Niger Delta region and the people since the discovery of oil in that region.

“The activities of these multinational oil companies are racist, ecocide, and crime against humanity. They should be held accountable with restoration reached.

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“The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been inundated with oil pollution since the start of oil exploitation in the 1960s. Now is the time to address and hold all polluters and their collaborators accountable for the cleanup of the Niger Delta region.

The group, however said that other demands presented by the South-South stakeholders are genuine and long overdue.

“The call for restructuring of the country is not peculiar to the region alone as other segments of the country know it is the right thing to do if Nigeria must move forward as one.

It however said, “the call to privatise the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries got us pondering. As activists with wholesome memories of past privatisation history in Nigeria, such exercise will set the region and the nation further backwards.

“In 2013, the Federal Government privatised the power sector. Nigerians anticipated a stable supply of electricity since the projections was that generation, transmission and the distribution would increase significantly.

“The private sector like expected is to be an efficient and productive manager. But the contrary is the case as the privatisation of the power sector is entangled in persistent hoax and deception. Today, Nigeria is in total darkness. Hardly can any state in Nigeria get an uninterrupted power supply for 6 hours in a day.

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“The privatisation of the power sector was a tool by which prominent politicians and their cronies in big business thrived from the misery and frustrations of the generality of Nigerians. They deliberately plundered and sabotaged the Power holding company of Nigeria (PHCN).

“Again, these same capitalist class both in big business and in politics have been intentionally looting and sabotaging the nation’s refineries in the name of turnaround maintenance.

“These same saboteurs are the ones clamouring for the privatisation of the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries. They plot to buy them with monies they have looted from the Government’s treasury. Their sole aim is to further profit from the misery and frustrations of the generality of Nigerians”, the group lamented.

BIGPENNGR.COM had reported that one of multiple issues raised by the south-south was the demand for the relocation of the headquarters of major oil companies in Nigeria – as well as several NNPC (the state-owned oil company) subsidiaries currently in Lagos and Abuja –  to the region.”

Specifically, chairman of the South-South Governors’ Forum and Governor of Delta, Ifeanyi Okowa, who presented the region’s demand, had decried the deliberate lack of understanding, empathy, and uncompromising attitudes of some Nigerians, who refused to understand the peculiar challenges of the South-South region, especially the degradation of the environment and the pollution of our waters.

He, however, said, “All we demand and ask for is fairness and equity and as we await actions to restructure the country, we hereby renew our demands for the relocation of the headquarters of major oil companies in Nigeria to the region; relocation of several NNPC subsidiaries from Lagos and Abuja to the region.”

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