FG To Implement UNEP Report On Ogoni Clean-up

To address decades of environmental concerns in the Niger Delta, the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) has revealed its intention to implement the United Nations Environment Programme’s feasible recommendations for the remediation and restoration of impacted communities in Ogoniland.

HYPREP’s head of communications, Enuolare Mba-Nwigoh, who disclosed this in a statement yesterday, said HYPREP was building partnership across strata, including the development of technical and administrative frameworks to achieve a sustainable cleanup programme.

Mba-Nwigoh, who was positive on the position taken by the agency, recalled that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), on August 4, 2011, released the Environmental Assessment of Ogoni, a report that detailed the devastating effects of hydrocarbon pollution on the environment and the livelihoods of the people and made feasible recommendations for the remediation and restoration of impacted communities.

She said the step signalled the federal government’s commitment to address decades of environmental concerns in the Niger Delta sternly and further heralds a transformative developmental trajectory for the Ogoni people.

While emphasising that fourteen years after the release of the infamous UNEP report and the establishment of the HYPREP, the Project’s Communication lead lauded: ” There is a glimmer of hope now beckoning from the horizon, transforming a once seemingly bleak and despairing situation into one of opportunities, boundless possibilities, and a reassuring future for the communities and posterity.”

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“The implementation of the UNEP report’s recommendations by HYPREP has made its spirit and letter a reality, expressing and interpreting its tenets in ways that place the people at the core of the environmental remediation and restoration of livelihood efforts.”

“Today, through the thematic areas drawn from its two cardinal mandates of environmental remediation and livelihood restoration, HYPREP has recorded tremendous successes in soil and groundwater remediation, shoreline cleanup, mangrove restoration; provision of potable water, public health interventions, construction of the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Restoration (CEER), construction of the Ogoni Power Project (OPP) and sustainable livelihoods,” she said.

While revealing that HYPREP have completed and obtained NOSDRA’s closeout certification for 50 lots in the Simple-Risk sites, the project’s spokesperson said the ongoing remediation of medium-risk complex sites, involving remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater, is 38% completed. She further revealed that the Phase 1 shoreline cleanup and mangrove restoration stand at 56% and 93% completed, respectively.