By: Felix Ikpotor
Barely Twenty Nine Years after the murder of renowned Environmental-rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni sons by the General Sani Abacha led military junta in Nigeria, youths of Ogoniland in Rivers State are now demanding for full-scale resumption of oil exploration in the area.
The Ogoni youths who spoke during a rally in Bori, headquarters of Ogoniland in support of the Ogoni Economic Rebirth Project, said resumption of oil exploration should go alongside the Ogoni clean-up exercise being handled by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP.
Barinuazor Emmanuel, President of National Youth Council of Ogoni People, NYCOP, while addressing Ogoni youths who came out for the rally expressed the fear that if the world moves away from fossil fuels to renewable energy, Ogoni oil would be a waste, hence the need to explore it now for the betterment of the younger generation.
He said: “Before 1993, we gave our best to Nigeria, we gave our oil for 35 years and the royalty that was to accrue to Ogoni people was $150m (One Hundred and Fifty Million) United States Dollars, before late Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogonis raised the alarm.
“Now, the UNEP Report which later came out told us that it was going to take 25 to 30 years to remediate Ogoniland. Now the question is, how many of us would be alive in the next 25 to 30 years? Children born in 1990 are already 33 and 34 years old, they are graduates and some even fathers and mothers and they can’t negotiate for us because they knew nothing about what we passed through.
“Also, after eight years, we believed that the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, would have given us enough success by remediating atleast fifty percent of Ogoni land. They were supposed to do decommissioning of pipelines, HYPREP was supposed to run with oil resumption and the One Billion Dollars which they have spent and would still spend more, we want that to be a roadmap that as we are cleaning, we’ll be negotiating for oil resumption for the younger generation to benefit”.
The NYCOP leader added: “The basic thing now is that oil resumption must go alongside Ogoni clean-up because Ogoni is not the only polluted area, other places in Niger Delta are also polluted and HYPREP is supposed to move from Ogoni to clean other areas but we need to start negotiating from now because oil is going, the world is moving to renewable energy and if the agreement from COP23 is implemented, what would be the fate of Ogoniland?
“We have lost the best of our generation, we have lost the best of our brains, we have lost our land because of oil exploration and I think the world should compensate Ogoni people by allowing us to benefit from our oil and gas because we have paid the supreme price that no other ethnic group has paid to save the environment and our oil, so that’s why the youths have come out today that we are informed, that we are moving international to where the world is going and oil resumption must go hand-in-hand with the clean up”.
While stating that Ogoni cannot be languishing in poverty while sitting on gold, noted that the Ogoni Economic Rebirth Project throws up a unique opportunity for Ogoni Exploration & Production Company to collaborate with a choice financial and technical partner of great repute in the industry to secure the lease to operate the assets within the Ogoni oilfields, adding that the entire vision would be pursued within the ambit of the law till its actualisation.
The Ogoni youth leader used the occasion to call on all well-meaning Ogoni sons and daughters to open their minds and shun the deceitful ploys of those he referred to as ‘ commercial activists and visionless high grade racketeers who would often parade under the toga of leaders, who may come hereafter to sing in discordant tones’.
