‘Fed Govt Can’t Nominate Representatives For Ogoni In HYPREP, Trust Fund Boards’

A group, the Ogoni Development and Democracy Forum (ODDF), has said it is wrong for the federal government to nominate representatives for Ogoni people in the governing boards of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) and the Ogoni Trust Fund (OTF).

ODDF convener, Legborsi Pyagbara, who disclosed this while briefing journalists in Port Harcourt yesterday, said the present attempt to capture the project would be resisted at all costs.

Pyagbara stated that the Ogoni Trust Fund was created with three stakeholders: the federal government, the oil companies and the Ogoni people, saying that it was agreed that each stakeholder group should be allowed to nominate its own representative.

“Let me state from the onset that the Ogoni clean-up and  ecosystem rehabilitation project was not a gift from the government of Nigeria. It is a product of definitive collective struggle of Ogoni people as engendered by the peaceful and non-violent revolution of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People.

“This revolution created conflict that necessitated a negotiation process, first by conducting an environmental assessment process undertaken by the United Nations. This was followed by another round of negotiation process involving the government, the Ogoni people led by MOSOP and the oil companies, led by Shell.

“These three stakeholders went into negotiation of equal stakeholders, under the guide of the United Nations’ secretary- general’s special envoy on UNEP Report, Hon. Eric Soroh.

“The negotiation centered Ogoni people at the heart of the project. The present attempt to capture the project will be resisted at all costs.

“The Ogoni Trust Fund was created with three stakeholders: the federal government, first represented by the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, and later the Federal Ministry of Environment, the oil industry, led by Shell Petroleum, now replaced  by Reinessance and the Ogoni people, led by MOSOP.

“In terms of conclusion the governing structure of HYPREP and the trust fund, each of the stakeholder-groups are supposed to nominate their own representatives in the governing structure of these institutions.

“Just as the federal government cannot nominate for the oil industry, who represents them on the governing board of HYPREP and the trust fund, they have no business nominating representatives for Ogoni people in these two boards,” he said.