Ogoni Cleanup to commence this month
The Federal Government has said the ‘Ogoni clean-up’ exercise will commence this month. Minister of Environment, Ibrahim Jibril, while disclosing this, assured that the remediation exercise would no longer be postponed as the governing council of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) is on the verge of submitting the necessary procurement document to the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and then to the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
“I expect in the next one or two weeks, the HYPREP governing council, which is in charge of the Ogoni cleanup, will seat to finalise and pass these papers to BPP for confirmation and finally to the Federal Executive Council. So, all things being equal, we are expecting that in this November, the clean-up exercise will begin earnestly. In short, what is beyond the ministry, the council will approve and what is beyond the Council will have to get approval from FEC. So, I can assure you we are on course and this time around, there won’t be shifting of date and you can be rest assured that very soon, the clean-up exercise will become reality. It is our work, we are committed to it and we will ensure we achieve this stated objective,” Jibril said.
The Minister blamed the recent flooding in some states on poor drainage system, wrong town planning as well as inappropriate solid waste management. He restated the need for state governments to develop proper waste management policy and promote the habit of waste sorting from home.
