By: Odieh Ramon, Yenagoa.
Social justice organisation, Ford Foundation, in conjunction with an International Working Group (IWG) on Petroleum Pollution and Just Transition in the Niger Delta, has sought an end to the environmental despoliation of the region, particularly Bayelsa State.
The coalition known as the Just Clean-Up IWG, which includes the United Kingdom’s think tank, ODI Global, Polluter Pays Project, Health of Mother Earth, and Social Action International, demanded that polluters of the Niger Delta environment be made to pay.
It stated this at a summit: “Make the Polluter Pay: Environmental Genocide and Just Energy Transition” held at the foundation’s headquarters in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
The event’s focus was the report of the Bayelsa State Oil and Environmental Commission (BSOEC) titled: “An Environmental Genocide: Counting the Human and Environmental Cost of Oil in Bayelsa, Nigeria.”
The coalition noted that, being the state where oil was first explored in Nigeria, Bayelsa was more polluted than Ogoniland, also in the Niger Delta, which is undergoing a UN process of cleanup.
Director of Natural Resources
and Climate Change at Ford Foundation, Prof. Anthony Bebbington, said after years of exploration in the Niger Delta, oil firms must consider the rights of the people and the environment instead of focusing on only energy transition and divestment.
Bebbington noted that energy transition comes at a cost, “which accumulate somewhere else, with huge environmental, human and social consequences and must not be allowed.”
ODI Global’s Director of Politics and Governance, Dr. Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, said the IWG was set up to ensure that the 10 recommendations in the oil pollution report saw the light of day and that the right pressure was built up nationally and internationally.
According to Nwajiaku-Dahou, who was a BSOEC member, the response to the oil spill was often long in coming, and that environmental genocide was actually preventable if there had been an adequate response.
Dr. Nnimmo Bassey of HOMEF averred that the urgency of the clean up of the region ought to begin from Bayelsa, as the earliest oil wells from 1957 were abandoned and had not been decommissioned.
Recently, I visited oil wells number one, two, six, nine, and 12, drilled in the 1950s, which have been abandoned since the 1970s and have never been decommissioned. But they are all still dripping oil. This is why you find hydrocarbons in the blood of community people in the Niger Delta.”
A community representative, Emem Okon of the Kebekatche Women & Development Resource Centre, narrated the effect of oil pollution on the health of women and on the food chain.
The author and Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom in Bayelsa, King Bubaraye Dakolo, said oil multinationals like Shell were surreptitiously “running away” from the region under the guise of divestment without taking responsibility for their environmental damage.
The royal father said he took legal action against Shell as part of measures to address the environmental injustice to his subjects.
Other speakers were Bayelsa-born Law lecturer at the University of Aberystwyth, Prof. Engobo Emeseh, Dr. Isaac Osuoka of Social Action International, Emmanuel Kuyole (Ford Foundation), Alex Doukas (Director, Polluter
Pays Project), and rights activist, Olanrewaju Suraj.
In a special address, the Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, assured the coalition that his administration had taken measures to implement some of the recommendations of the report, including presenting the document to Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu.
Governor Diri said the state legislature was already working on a key bill in order to legalise the report.
He said: “For decades, Bayelsa has been on the frontline of energy production, supplying the oil and gas that power our nation’s economy and bolster global energy security. Yet alongside this contribution has come an incalculable cost: widespread pollution, degraded farmlands, poisoned rivers and creeks, compromised health, and far too often ruined livelihoods. For decades, our people have endured and cried out in pain.
“As a government, we have moved with purpose. I have formally presented the report to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and he directed the relevant MDAs to take necessary actions that will prevent further harm and begin to mitigate the damage already done.
“We are working with the state legislature to establish the Bayelsa State Recovery Agency, which will provide the legislative framework for a dedicated Recovery Fund. The Community Administration Bill is already at the committee stage in the state legislature.”
The Bayelsa governor expressed gratitude to Ford Foundation and the IWG for their effort to internationalise the Bayelsa oil pollution report and the injustice to the people of the state.
“We believe that the pains and impacts highlighted in the report can and must be addressed through strategic partnerships. Working with institutions such as the Just Clean UP IWG, Ford Foundation, ODI, and others will bring global expertise, catalyze funding, and strengthen advocacy. Bayelsa cannot carry this burden alone.”