Cleanup: FG to Conduct Health Audit of Ogoni People
The federal government has announced that there will be an health audit of Ogoni people, to ascertain the needed interventions to be done in the area.
The Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, disclosed this yesterday at a oneday stakeholders’ engagement programme on the cleanup of Ogoniland, held in Bori, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Ikeazor, who assured the people that the Ministry of Environment will continue to engage the people of Ogoni communities, disclosed that the youths of Ogoniland would be engaged on environmental surveillance of ongoing HYPREP cleanup sites.
She appealed for collaboration with all stakeholders to make the cleanup project a success.
“We will carry out a health audit of Ogoni people, to ascertain the effect of prolong exposure to hydrocarbon on the people, in order to determine the kind of interventions that needs to be done.
You call it security but I call it environmental surveillance. So we are going to engage Ogoni youths on environmental surveillance, to protect all the sites we’re cleaning. No one can protect the sites more than the people. The more we have our young people securing theses sites, the better for us.
“For advertisements of contracts, i have made sure that due process will be followed. The bids will be open to all qualified Nigerians
“We might have to look at other sites that are contaminated, so that ones we finished the cleanup, we know that we have finished every thing, not just cleaning the polluted sites that are under our scope while there are still other areas that are contaminated.