Ogoni clean-up: ERA wants govt to overhaul HYPREP for efficiency
Port Harcourt -- The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth has called on the Federal Government to urgently restructure and overhaul the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, for effective implementation of UNEP Report on Ogoniland.
Programme Manager of ERA, Mike Karikpo, said this during the launch of an evaluation of the implementation of UNEP environmental assessment of Ogoniland, tagged "No cleanup, no justice."
Karikpo regretted that nothing much has been done nine years after UNEP recommended the cleaning up of oil polluted sites in Ogoniland, as contained in the UNEP Report submitted to the Federal Government in 2011.
He maintained that the result of the structural failures were visible for all to see.
"We urged the federal government to commit to transparency and investigate any allegations of conflict of interest and failures of HYPREP. To strengthen HYPREP, government should introduce legislation to make the agency truly independent, transparent and accountable.
"Oil companies like Shell should have no role in the oversight bodies, management and implementation of the project such as the governing council and board of trustees," he said.
Also speaking, the President of National Youth Council of Ogoni People, Dr. Young Mike, alleged that the clean-up of Ogoniland has been bought over by the elites.