Blessing Iruoma, Port Harcourt
A renowned environmentalist, Rev. Nnimmo Bassey, has decried the level of corruption in the operation of crude oil in Nigeria, stressing that the country can be richer and more developed without oil as source of economy.
Rev Bassey stated this yesterday, while responding to questions from journalists at the 25th Memorial Environmental Summit, organized in Port Harcourt by Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) in conjunction with Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA).
Bassey who is the Executive Director of HOMEF, stressed that instead of promoting development, the discovery of oil has damaged the Niger Delta environment and Nigeria as a state.
He recalled that before the discovery of oil in 1950s, Nigeria used to have a steady economy generated from Agriculture.
According to Bassey: ‘The day oil was found in Niger Delta, was the day that the fortunes of the region took a downward turn.
“Oil has not only damaged the Niger Delta, it had damaged Nigeria. Nigeria was richer before oil was found. The finding of oil brought about the centric kind of government, the unitary government where the center became so powerful and all the region and states had to depend on the center.
“Before oil, the region were very productive, the North was productive and progressive, the West, the East, the Middle West were also productive. They were not depending on anybody for anything and they were careful to provide Education and social services for their regions.
“Since oil became a magic resource for Dollars, everything have been damaged: we have corruption, we have violence, we have destruction of social services and the Niger Delta is almost destroyed. The struggle now for us is to ensure that the Niger Delta is not totally destroyed and that we preserve what we have and restore what has been damaged.
“There are many unknowns with regard to all the operations in Nigeria. Nigeria does not know how much its actually extracting on a daily basis. What we have is figures. The actual extraction is much more than the figure. We don’t know how much oil is stolen on a daily basis”.
He explained that 25 years after the tragic activities that culminated in the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight Ogoni kinsmen, Shell and other fossil fuels industry actors are still in the business of denial as they continue the wanton destruction of the Niger Delta and Nigerian environment.
However, in his address at the summit, Barr. Chima Williams, Acting Executive Director ERA/FoEN, call for comprehensive environmental audit of the Niger Delta and should be carried out by the Nigerian government.
He also stated that Nigeria should pay the Ogoni nation an ecological debt for decades of pollution, neglect of their polluted environment, displacement of her people and denying them justice, noting the need for a judicial panel of inquiry to revisit the murders of Ken Saro Wiwa and the arbitrary arrests, maiming and killings that forced many Ogoni indigenes to flee and go into exile.
He fuan immediate release of the Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Bus seized for no reason by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) in 2015.
Our correspondent reported that participants at the summit include civil society, community leaders from within and outside Ogoniland, women leaders, youth groups, the academia, and the media.
Related Posts
