We will work with civil society to deliver on cleanup of Ogoniland — HYPREP boss

THE Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) Project Coordinator, Professor Nenibari Zabbey, has promised to work with civil society to improve the operations of the agency, particularly the clean up of Ogoniland.

He said this after interacting with some environmental non-governmental organisations recently.

At a roundtable on HYPREP organised by the Peoples Advancement Centre (PAC) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Executive Director, Chima Williams, restated the resolve of civil society groups advancing the full implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Assessment Report on Ogoniland to work with the new leadership of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) to achieve the objective.

Williams said that it was good news that the recently appointed Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Professor Nenibari Zabbey, is an activist who had campaigned for the restoration of the Ogoni environment as recommended by the UNEP and had equally published papers on how the cleanup exercise will succeed.

The ERA/FoEN boss noted however that even with Professor Zabbey on the saddle, civil society will not let up on their watchdog role to make the new helmsman succeed and the goals of the UNEP Assessment achieved.

Earlier, in his welcome remarks, PAC convener, Celestine Akpobari, had explained that HYPREP as an agency of government was not set up for the love of the impacted people of Ogoniland, but because of civil society pressure exposing the decades of long injustices meted on the Ogoni people.

Akpobari said the convening is targeted at getting the new leadership of HYPREP to stay on course in implementing the UNEP assessment even as he noted that HYPREP had deviated from its original mandate in some cases.

While congratulating the new HYPREP Coordinator, the Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey noted that HOMEF believes that the success of the Ogoni clean-up is cardinal trigger for the clean-up of other polluted areas of the region.

“There, are a whole lot of expectations placed on HYPREP and there must be transparency and accountability and we request that CSOs and other critical stakeholders should have access to the work sites and project milestones for the purpose of regular evaluation and assessment of work being done.”

While responding, Prof Zabbey expressed gratitude for the show of support and pledged to hit the ground running with a human-centric approach. “Things are beginning to

take shape and in the coming weeks, there will be a lot of activities because the Federal Government has awarded 39 plots for remediation, 34 shoreline cleanup contracts, and nine mangrove regeneration contracts.

“We are also contracting an ecologist who will train youths on how to setup mangrove nurseries. We are not just doing the training, there will be grants to start up their mangrove nurseries, as a means enhancing livelihoods.”

Prof Zabbey further stated that his approach will be a human-centric cleanup and restoration approach which will be participatory. He announced that the gender disparity in the agency will be addressed.

“We are going to have 60 percent men and 40 percent women participation in some of the cleanup processes. We are strengthening our Monitoring and Evaluation abilities in cooperation with UNEP.”