By Orovwigho Godfrey
About the last quarter of 2021, some environmental activists had lamented the poor implementation of the Ogoni cleanup exercise, saying that Federal Government’s handling of the project since the inception of the Muhammadu Buhari administration leaves much to be desired. In a comment made to the press, the Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Dr. Nnimmong Bassey, worried about reported plans to resume oil exploration activities in Ogoniland, noting that the pollution of the last decades was yet to be remediated, while the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), recommendations of were yet to be fully complied with.
Perhaps such concerns prompted the federal government to reassign the responsibility of overseeing Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP), which has the responsibility of executing the United Nations Environmental Protection (UNEP) funded project of cleaning up the degradation of Ogoni land by oil exploration activities, to the NigerDelta ministry, and reasons abound to justify this decision by government. First, it is the responsibility of the head to ensure delivery. In public and private organisations, it is the head who takes the blame for the team’s failure. If there is any security breach, the chief security officer takes the heat. Even in footballing business, the players are never sacked for failing to produce results, the coaches always go in for it. Even when the fanatics glaringly see players go out of form or fail to show motivation and focus on the pitch, the coach gets the blame, eventually. Therefore, that decision by the federal government was just an act by President Buhari to take up responsibility as head of government.
Secondly, an approach to solution finding that fails to yield expected demands timely change. Perhaps, the ministry of environment which previously supervised the Ogoni CleanUp, which have been delivering in several other responsibilities to the satisfaction of the president, did not show competence in this specific assignment, hence the president seeing no need to wield his axe, decided to reassign the responsibility to a relevant ministry. So it is just an act of the president’s magnanimity and in the spirit of ensuring timely delivery for collective good, that the NigerDelta ministry was direllcted to take up supervision of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP).
Thirdly, it is not out of place for the president to choose the most efficient resource at his disposable to execute his policy. If he sees that the NigerDelta ministry is in a better position to deliver the job, why not. As the agency of government in charge of supervising the NDDC which duty it is to initiate and facilitate procedures towards proffering lasting solutions to the socio-economic and developmental challenges of the region, the NigerDelta ministry has job roles that directly connects with oil bearing communities. As such, it is expected that through its well ingrained public relations capabilities, the ministry remains in constant communication with indigenes and stakeholders of the region. With this, the cooperation of communities and stakeholders alike for success of the project is much more guaranteed.
In achieving a satisfactory implementation of the UNEP report which targets full restoration of the natural earth in Ogoni, and by extension, sustaining, if not boosting the confidence of the project sponsors in the government, which is very key to continued partnership, the present leadership of the NigerDelta ministry is one that can be trusted to remain focused in order to help government meet the yearnings of affected communities who live with negative effects of oil exploration.
The type of sensitivity expected of the supervising ministry is shown by the minister’s commencement of consultative visits to governments of states and stakeholders in the region in seeking their partnership and cooperation. In the most recent of the visits to the governor of his home state, Udom Emmanuel, the minister had in his address, stressed that the ministry’s approach to the development of the Niger Delta region seeks partnership with governors of the region to guide the development process and work in sync to achieve the desired results for the people.
His words, “we are taking steps to ensure that we can change the future, if we cannot do much about the past, we have started a process of consulting with state governors before projects are embarked upon. We are taking that seriously and we’ll ensure that state government lead the way, guide the development process so that the NDDC as an interventionist agency can do better.”
In response, Governor Emmanuel, who agreed with the minister, identified partnership with the NDDC as a critical success factor in the development of the region. According to the host governor, projects executed by the interventionist agency may not address the peculiar needs of the people if the commission does not work hand in gloves with state governments in the region. In the same way, for the ongoing cleanup of Ogoniland and other oil bearing communities to be successful, the new partnership approach initiated by the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs should be sustained.
