Pollution: Halt IOCs Divestment in N’Delta, Group Tells FG

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt 

An ecological think tank organisation, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), has called on the federal government to stop all processes of divestment by the International Oil Companies (IOCs) in the Niger Delta region.

The group decried that the federal government has failed Nigerians, especially the Niger Deltans, by allowing the IOCs divest despite the weight of pollution caused during their operations in their host communities.

It insists that the affected polluted areas should be properly cleaned up before the IOCs movement.

It would be recalled that recently the House of Representatives urged the federal government to suspend divestment applications by IOCs including Shell and TotalEnergies, until they fulfill their environmental and social obligations to host communities in the region.

The resolution followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance moved by the House Minority Leader, Kingsley Chinda.

Speaking with journalists at a training on evidence gathering organised by the group for communities in Port Harcourt City, yesterday, the Executive Director of HOMEF, Nnimmo Bassey, said it was unacceptable for the companies to pollute the Niger Delta environment for over 50 years of their operations and then walkaway.

Bassey said it was unthinkable how the government could accept such processes despite the mess caused by the oil multinationals in the region.

He accused most of the new companies of having ties with the divesting companies, saying “At this time, the Nigerian government has completely failed the people as far as divestment is concerned. 

“The people were not consulted, the companies who are pretending to buy-off the international oil companies, some of them are being set-up by the divesting companies and they are the ones giving out money for another company to buy from them.”

He wondered “how government would even endorse those things, makes them very questionable. So, we believe that it’s never too late for the government to retrace its steps, and all the approvals so far should be nullified and the process should be more transparent.

“The oil companies cannot walk away from the pollution they have inflicted on the Niger Delta for over fifty years, it’s unthinkable, it’s unacceptable and government cannot sentence the people to this kind of harm,” Bassey insists.

In the training, the ecological think tank noted the need for communities to be taught how to get actionable evidence in case of pollution so as to enable them to get justice for their environment.

He said over the years there has been a marked improvement on environmental monitoring and reportage due to the consistent training of locals by the organisation.

“Today we are specifically looking at evidence gathering. Not only monitoring and reporting what you are seeing, we are looking at what kind of evidence can you collect that’s actionable? What evidence can be accepted by the courts?

“How can you get legal help if there is a problem that you need to take to court and who is the person that is in the best position to gather evidence that can be useful? These are the things we are focusing on today,” he stated.

Bassey further noted that fighting for environmental justice is becoming more critical hence the need for credible evidence.

In his remarks, Chief Samuel Iwo, Head of Firisika Polo, Marine Base, Port Harcourt, appreciated HOMEF for bringing the training to his community, assuring that the lessons learnt would be documented and remain useful to the community.

On her part, Mrs. Grace Timi stressed that women are most hit whenever anything happens to the environment and further lauded HOMEF for teaching them about their environment and how to monitor and get actionable evidence to demand for environmental justice each time there is pollution in their community.