Victor EzejaAn NGO, Center for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), has urged the Federal Government and stakeholders in the oil and gas communities in Nigeria to adopt effective measures to tackle challenges of environmental degradation caused by activities of companies working in the areas.
The group in a statement signed by the Co-ordinator, Mr Mulade Sheriff, called on the government and host community stakeholders to prevail on the oil multinationals in 2022, to come up with urgent measures to reverse the degraded Niger Delta environment in order to protect the flora and fauna of the region.
Sheriff said government regulatory authorities should insist on oil companies maintaining global environmental best practices as a way of saving the environment from further devastation in 2022.
“Leaders should strive at all times to work for the economic growth and advancement of the people.
“One big challenge faced in promoting growth and development in our communities is compromise from those who we naturally believe should fight to ensure that the needful is done which will benefit greater majority of the people at the long run,” Sheriff stated.
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The coordinator stressed the need for the stakeholders to advise oil companies to tackle the challenges of pollution in order to sustain the environment for future generations.
He observed that the National Oil Spill Detection and Responses Agency, Nigeria Upstream Regulatory Commission and other environmental regulatory agencies in the country now seemingly appeared to be weak in regulating the activities of oil and gas multinational companies.
“They compromise and take bias actions against the local people when it comes to the need to objectively dispense oil spill matters because the locals have nothing to offer government officials.
“We are worried over the discovery of the badly degraded environment of oil spills activities, the economic damages as a result of oil spillages may not be recovered in the next 30 years,” he observed.
Sheriff also urged the Ijaw Nation Congress to set up Environmental Impact Assessment and Sustainability Committee to ascertain the level of degradation for recovery.
The NGO coordinator pointed out that there are standard procedures for carrying out oil spill cleanups globally, and it was wrong to allow oil companies award cleanup contracts to incompetent contractors to save costs and create divisions among the people.
He, therefore, enjoined leaders in the Niger Delta region to ensure that oil companies adhere strictly to global best practices, instead of awarding clean up jobs to contracting firms that lack the capacity and experience to do so
Victor Ezeja is a passionate journalist with six years of experience writing on economy, politics and energy. He holds a Masters degree in Mass Communication.
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