The Guardian (Nigeria)

PANDEF, WTP flay FG’S inaction on N’delta situation

- From Ann Godwin, Port Harcourt

PNiger Delta Forum ( PANDEF) and a group, We The People ( WTP), have decried alleged Federal Government‘ s lack of commitment to the Niger Delta environmen­tal situation, despite Internatio­nal Oil Companies ( IOCS), which messed up the region, are leaving the area.

Miffed by the developmen­t, WTP has vowed to sue the IOCS for the destructio­n of the environmen­t and livelihood of the people in the course of oil exploratio­n and exploitati­on.

The Executive Director of WTP, Ken Henshaw, while speaking, yesterday, in Port Harcourt, in a one- day multistake­holders conference on oil company divestment­s in the Niger Delta, said the damage done by oil companies was enough to take them to court.

Henshaw said: “I think what the oil companies have done to the Niger Delta, the environmen­tal pollution they have caused, the livelihood lost, the destructio­n of the environmen­t they engendered are well known and we’ll document health risks the companies have created. They are enough grounds to take them to court.

“We think the oil companies can be found wanting on the basis of the fact that they have, for 64 years of extraction, destroyed the traditiona­l livelihood of the people.”

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