NASS, National Assembly
Ogoni land clean up: NASS summons Environment Minister
The National Assembly Joint Committee on Host Communities has summoned Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abdullahi, and Management of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), over failure to clean up Ogoni land despite payment of $1 billion for the project .
The Ogoni cleanup, backed by the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP), was flagged off in June 2016 by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, with fanfare and so much enthusiasm from both the Nigerian authorities and the people in the Niger Delta.
Expressing disappointment on failure to execute the project, the Chairman of the joint committee, Senator Degi Eremienyo declared Tuesday that officials of Ministry of Environment must appear before the Committee for required explanations on failure to carry out the Clean Up exercise despite $1billion made available for that purpose.
Senator Eremienyo who stated this at an interactive session the committee planned to have with the Ministry and other stakeholders which was however not attended by the Ministry, said absence of Minister of Environment and other critical stakeholders , was clear indication of conceament of information from them as far as the Ogoni Clean up project is concerned.
The Ministry, he lamented further, has evaded appearance before the committee three times on the very important issue, an action he said, will no longer be tolerated by the committee.
“I express my displeasure totally, frown at the attitude of the minister and also the project coordinator in demonstrating constant disrespect, disregard for the institution of the parliament because like I said, this is not the first invitation.
“We had invited them about three times and they have evaded engagement with the parliament.
“For me it is an appearance of concealment of information to us, to incapacitate us to go for effective discharge of our duties as a parliament to oversight the activities of hyprep.
“It also indicates incompetence, bad governance and insensitivity on the part of the Minister and others relevant to the project .
“We will not take this from the executive. Particularly with the ministry of environment that is saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the activities of running the affairs of hyprep.
“As the Chairman of this committee, I hereby endorsed and supported the motion that the minister and of course the project coordinator and the management team of the project should unfailingly appear before this joint committee on a date that will be transmitted to them through a letter from our secretariat,” he said.
He however, commend the federal government for conceptualising the idea as a follow up to the UN report on the cleanup of ogoniland.
“This project is very important to the people of the Niger Delta, it is a pilot project that is supposed to be replicated in other parts of the Niger Delta Region but apparently it is not working the way it is expected to work,” he added.