Yemi Adedeji, Abuja
Ibrahim Jibril, Minister of Environment says Nigerians no longer believe in the adminsitration’s commitment to cleanup Ogoniland and other polluted areas in the Niger Delta region.
This, he said may be due several unfulfilled promises made to the people by the government over the past 40 when the agitation began.
The Minister made this known during a national colloquium organised to celebrate 60 years birthday of Nnimmo Bassey in Abuja, with the theme: “Environmental Conflicts and the Quest for National Identity.”
Jibril, who acknowledged impact of environmental pollution in the Niger Delta region stated that contractors will move to site by September.
He said plans have reached an advanced stage for the remediation exercise of the Ogoniland, while also insiting that framework and timeline for the clean-up exercise have been developed among other scheduled activities to December 2019.
According to him, “One single trip in February 2016 in the forcados when there was a spill changed my entire perception about pollution in the region. I used to see fish fried with vegetable oil but by my trip that day made me see fish fried with crude oil. This has changed my opinion ….. If you allow environmental issues to persist, it will destroy the ecosystem.”
“We have developed a framework and close timeline that will take us to December 2019. The problem we are facing and we need Nnimmo to support is that people have been agitating for over 40 Years. A lot of promises have been made and not kept to the extent that they could not believe who will do the right thing anymore.”
“We have already advertised and gotten 400 companies. 284 are local and 60 are foreign. Assessments are ongoing and we have delineated about 14 sites as at last week from 26. They have been handled over to the Consultants.
“On the technical aspects, we have gotten 162 companies and nine of them are foreign who have qualified to the next stage. We intend to move to site and follow up by September,” Jibril noted