HYPREP and Ogoni clean-up

After decades of struggles, government’s attention was at last drawn to the plight of the people of Ogoni when the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) was invited to undertake an assessment of oil pollution in Ogoni land with a view to finding a solution that would bring an end to the suffering of the people.

 In 2011, UNEP submitted a report to the federal government on environmental assessment of Ogoni land. The UNEP report contains detailed information on the assessment which covers contaminated land, ground water, surface water, sediment, vegetation, air pollution, public health, industry practice and institutional issues as well as recommendations and steps to be followed in carrying out the clean-up exercise.

On June 2, 2016, the federal government flagged-off the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) with the mandate to remediate the environment and restore the livelihood of the people. 

A Project Coordination Office (PCO) for HYPREP was set up in Ogoni land headed by the coordinator, Dr Marvin Barinem Dekil.  HYPREP being a federal government project is fully guided by the rules and regulations that apply in public service.  To ensure full accountability and adherence to extant rules, staff from relevant federal ministries have been deployed to the project. However, the project takes into consideration the integration of local content in every aspect.  In this wise, it has engaged, at various levels, manpower of different skills drawn from all the impacted communities.

The UNEP Report of 2011, which serves as a blueprint for the implementation of the clean-up of Ogoni land, specifies some emergency measures that should be carried out prior to the remediation exercise to provide temporary relief to a people that have suffered years of no access to potable water and possible health challenges due to oil pollution.  In implementing this report, HYPREP commenced activities to update the baseline data of the report which was written since 2011. To ensure accuracy, HYPREP had to carry out the exercise of collecting soil, surface and underground water samples in order to have the current status of the level of impact of oil spillage on the communities prior to the provision of portable water which is one of the emergency measures recommended in the report.

HYPREP also carried out medical outreach that covered Gokana, Tai, Khana and Eleme local government areas where patients with various medical conditions were attended to including surgeries. The medical outreach was to enable HYPREP collect primary data on the health status of people as part of activities towards the implementation of the health impact study in the communities of Ogoni to ascertain whether there is a link between some ailments in the land and oil pollution. 

HYPREP has through its Communication and Community Engagement Unit carried out sensitisation exercise to the 21 impacted communities while successfully engaging traditional rulers, faith-based organisations, women groups, youths, Ogoni elected representatives, pressure groups, civil societies, members of the press and stakeholders. 

 It has carried out assessment, characterisation, delineation and scoping on all the sites identified in the UNEP report to establish their current contamination status as well as establish the appropriate remediation technology to be adopted.  All identified sites were successfully mapped out for remediation with data indicating the vertical and lateral contamination levels. 

It is surprising to hear some youths allege that HYPREP is not carrying youths along or that youths are excluded in its activities.  I am aware that HYPREP has employed young scientists and others with relevant professional qualification from Ogoni.  I am also aware that there are young Ogoni men and women working on each remediation site.

HYPREP has provided a platform for Ogoni to be trained; recently, 21 scientific officers from Ogoni were in Switzerland on an intensive training on Management of Contaminated Site Assessment, Clean-up & Assessment and Clean-up of Contaminated Sites including Fieldwork Techniques in addition to several other trainings in Nigeria by Shell and UNEP.

 Fifteen youths have been trained in the fabrication of garri processing machines through a tripartite agreement between HYPREP, Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Onne, a programme that lasted for three months.  All arrangements for the training of 1,200 women in batches of 400 by United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in agricultural enterprise are almost concluded.  Rivers state government through the Ministry of Employment Generation and Economic Empowerment has also expressed readiness to collaborate and partner with HYPREP to train women and youths of Ogoni under the Sustainable Livelihood Programme. The best part of it is that several Ogoni youths that could have been in the labour market have been trained and employed by HYPREP, while others have been trained and are ready to be engaged by the contractors.

 HYPREP has in keeping to the laid down procedure, followed due process in handling the award of contracts for the clean-up project in line with the Procurement Act of 2007.  Advertisements were placed on March 30, 2018 in Federal Tenders Journal, local and foreign media for expression of interest by contractors for remediation works. The technical and financial bid opening exercises were conducted transparently and all Public Procurement Regulations were strictly followed as contained in the Public Procurement Manual.

At the end of the process, 21 contractors who qualified were invited to a kick-off meeting to enlighten them on how the project will be managed, what is expected of them, engagement of local content, relationship with the host communities and other issues that would enhance the smooth running of the project.  it is shocking to say that after these processes, some individuals are alleging that contracts were awarded to incompetent companies.

To show and further confirm to the people of Ogoni the commitment of the federal government and the importance it places on the project, the immediate minister of environment, Suleiman Hassan Zarma, performed the ceremony of presenting the contractors to the communities and site handover in Alode and Obolo-Ebubu communities in Eleme local government area and Buemene-Korokoro in Tai local government area while the project coordinator of HYPREP, Dr Dekil led the delegation for the site handover ceremony in Khana and Gokana local government areas. A total of 21 sites have so far been handed over to contractors by HYPREP in Eleme, Tai, Khana and Gokana LGAs.

Rather than sponsor negative propaganda against HYPREP and the government, people should approach HYPREP to iron things out. I use this medium to urge my Ogoni brothers and sisters to get authentic information on all HYPREP activities.

Comrade Imeabe is president, Ogoni Youth Development Initiative .

Leave a Reply