Nigeria: Next Step - Clean Up the Niger Delta

All Africa.com

10 August 2011

Nigeria: Next Step - Clean Up the Niger Delta

Deirdre LaPin

guest column

The recommendations of the United Nations Environment Programme's study on oil pollution in Ogoniland point to the need for a genuine shift in the priorities and practices of the oil industry and government regulatory agencies in the Niger Delta, writes AllAfrica guest columnist Deirdre LaPin.

The study makes clear that nothing less than ending pollution and full remediation of Ogoniland and the whole Niger Delta region should be accepted as an end point, she says.

The long-awaited report from the United National Environmental Program (UNEP) on oil damage in the Ogoni area was presented to President Goodluck Jonathan on August 4 in Abuja. This important study, the first of its kind in the Niger Delta, was conceived well before 2006 by the Federal Government as part of the Ogoni reconciliation and peace process led by Father Matthew Kukah (recently named Bishop of Sokoto). Intended as a major assessment of the impacts of oil production in the Ogoni region, UNEP in an early statement described the aim as to "clarify and de-mystify concerns expressed by local communities".