It is so heart-warming to see that the long-touted Ogoniland clean-up has become a reality and no longer the stuff of speculation or propaganda.
A recent media tour verified that the yearnings of the Ogoni people, the subject of their struggle and the vision of the United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP, to restore Ogoniland, are gradually coming alive throughout the four local government areas – Tai, Eleme, Khana and Gokana.
Indeed, the Ogoni Four and Ogoni Nine factions that perished in gruesome circumstances 30 years ago could be said not to have died in vain, given the world class environmental remediation that their ancestral land is receiving from the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, led by Professor Nenibarini Zabbey.
The lynching of the Ogoni Four in May 1994 and hanging of the Ogoni 9 on November 10, 1995, led the UNEP to send experts to study the environmental threats and proffer the best ways to restore the horribly degraded environment. Within six years, the Federal Government received the UNEP Report in 2011. However, the clean-up was made to wait for another eleven years before former President Muhammadu Buhari set up the HYPREP in April 2022.
Within the past three years, HYPREP has mounted a clean-up template that could become the gold standard for such projects anywhere in the world. Among the projects are regional water treatment plants to supply dozens of communities within their areas of coverage, the Centre of Excellence and Environmental Remediation, CEER, project, a self-contained mini-city at Wiiyaakara in Khana LGA. It is a research institution for environmental studies that will draw experts and students from all over the world.
Apart from the 100-bed Ogoni Specialist Hospital at Kpite, Tai LGA, HYPREP is set to complete the 40-bed Cottage Hospital in Buan, Khana LGA. Actual environmental remediation activities being executed mainly by indigenous Ogoni manpower and expertise include the shoreline remediation sites in Goi and four other areas in Ogoni, and the mangrove restoration project at Bomu, Gokana.
There are also ongoing massive excavations and restoration of polluted soils and groundwater in 39 sites. HYPREP is not just remediating the environmental disaster of the past 50 years, it is also equipping the Ogoni youth and women with the certified expertise to clean up polluted environments anywhere their services are required.
We hope, however, that youths from similarly polluted communities beyond Ogoni are given the same exposure as their Ogoni counterparts to ensure equal opportunity and prevent grumbling. Happily, HYPREP’s operations have a national scope. Ogoni is only a pilot or take-off point.
We also hope the current funding model is sustained. These projects must be completed and properly maintained to prevent a repeat of past blunders.
From its past agonies and tragedies, Ogoniland is beginning to smile.
The post As Ogoni clean-up gathers pace appeared first on Vanguard News.
