Environmental Injustice—Revenge Or Criminal Negligence?

As the month of August marking the third anniversary of the UNEP report on Ogoni environment draws closer, analysts and other apex organizations are accusing President Goodluck Jonathan and Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company of revenge and criminal negligence against the Ogoni people. Speaking from his office in United States, the President of the National Union of Ogoni Students' USA, Mr. Pius Barikpoa Nwinee said, 'Dr. Jonathan's attempt to sweep the UNEP report under the carpet is a criminal conspiracy unacceptable to the Ogoni students and people.'

The indigenous Ogoni people of Nigeria who are hapless victims of oil exploitation in Africa's most populous country are stepping up lobbying at international fora including the United States' House of Representatives to ensure environmental justice for their people.

The physical, social, and natural environments of the Ogoni people are experiencing a dismal slow death and according to a 2011 UNEP report, the ecological plundering and Oil spill in Ogoni will take upward of 30 years to clean-up and remediate. Protest matches around the globe to bring attention to the ecological damage and neglect in Ogoni have become a ritual, a routine, a line of defense by the Ogoni people and their supporters because it's been three years since the report indicting the Nigerian government and Shell Oil Company for ecological genocide was submitted to President Goodluck Jonathan; and its been three years of procrastination, recalcitrant, deception, and inactivity even when benzene contaminants are inexpeccably extinguishing the Ogoni people in record numbers.

Nigerians at the top of the leadership hierarchy (including President Jonathan) appears to have jettisoned or dispensed the Ogoni clean-up from their agenda as neither the President nor any of his ministerial appointees visited Ogoni for an assessment of the area. The President/CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company or officials has never officially visited the area as well. With the attitudinal display of insensitivity by the Nigerian government and Shell Oil Company toward the plight of the Ogoni people, analysts are questioning whether compassion is a part of their human nature. Which nation treats her citizens this way? quipped Mr. Roney Peters, a restaurant owner in New York, New York?

It is a bitter truth but even animals treat their vulnerable with companion something that is lacking in Black Africa's most populous nation. Some people interviewed for this report conceive that President Jonathan's inactivity is bound out of 'vengeance', defined as 'the act of or desire for taking revenge; retributive punishment' but I am not going to be speculative. A second school of thought speculates that President Goodluck Jonathan is executing Shell Oil company's agenda to make life miserable for the Ogoni people who declared the firm persona non-grata in 1993 to force them (the Ogonis) into submission without negotiation.

Whatever Dr. Jonathan and Shell Oil's motive(s) for not budging despite national, international campaigns, appeals, and outcries, and a promise from Ban Ki Moon, U.N Secretary- General to help with the clean-up and remediation remain uncertain. As reported in the Guardian Newspaper of 2011, (paraphrasing), a credible U.N source said, the entire UN system, especially the UNEP and United Nations Development Program (UNDP), would be deployed with specific instructions to help Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Netherlands and the oil companies involved, especially Shell, to conduct an acceptable clean-up that is to last several years.

According to the source, the resolve of the UN to conduct an effective follow-up is because the UNEP report itself detailed how oil companies and the Nigerian government failed to meet their own standards, and how the stipulated process of investigation, reporting and clean-up was deeply flawed in favor of the oil firms and against the victims.

The Jonathan's administration and Royal Dutch Shell may have jettisoned clean-up of Ogoniland but it remains an altruistic fact that the Ogoni people never consign their rights easily. They demand their right(s) with every drop of blood that passes through the fiber of their veins in peaceful, non-violent but with resilient and vigor. They will never give up the right to their environment no matter what; because as Ken Saro Wiwa, Africa's foremost human rights campaigner preached, 'the environment is man's first right.' The environment is the first line in human survival as a source of food, nutritional supplement, energy, and water supplies. The environment must always be protected.

Now that a constitutional renewal process, chaired by former Supreme Court Justice, Mr. Idris Kutigi (rtd) is in place in Nigeria, the Ogoni people are awaiting environmental justice, compensation and remediation. It has become a contending necessity and an imperative desire to reach out to participants at the national conference to remedy the decades of racism against the Ogoni people.

The elites at the national conference should decipher into history of the Ogoni struggle for a clean environment and political inclusion and protect this minority tribe who for decades have muscled Shell Oil Company with it neo-colonial agenda. The tendency to see the environmental mess in Ogoni as an 'Ogoni problem' should not becloud good judgment from the conference. It would be a mistake for the conferees, statesmen/women to consign the demands of the Ogoni people for environmental remediation to the dustbin because it is an 'Ogoni problem.'

They should look toward the future because as one of America's finest stocks, Rev (Dr.) Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from a Birmingham jail in 1963, 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' Ogoni is vulnerable and steps must be taken to protect the tribe because if it dies, we shall ALL be accountable to our creator.

The task is daunting and challenging because of personalities, nationalities, and corporation(s) involved. However, this opportunity must never go by without an agreement on environmental security, protection of minority rights, and a clear definition of the future of Nigerian youths. Environmental justice is one of the recipes of a strong and ebullient society. The state of Alaska model represents a good recipe for Nigeria. With oil discovery in the North Slope of Alaska in 1976, the state amended its constitution inserting Article 9 Section 15, the Alaska Permanent Fund into it, 'whereby 25% of oil money is invested in a dedicated fund for future generations of Alaskans who would no longer have oil as a resource.'

Alaska invested $734,000 in 1976 and by 2012 the fund has grown to $42.1 billion. Don't we think dividend from a Niger Delta Permanent Fund will solve some of Nigeria's intrinsic problems than dolling out billions of dollars and contracts to militants, insurgents, and kingpins? The conference is an opportunity to entrench the Niger Delta Permanent Fund in Nigeria constitution to safeguard the future of the Niger Delta youths as Alaska Governor Jay Hammond did in 1976.

Scotland also have the Scottish Land Fund whereby most fragile communities share grants worth hundreds and thousands of pounds that encourages purchasing assets into community ownership. This year a community group in Beauly, Inverness-shire, one of nine groups in Scotland shared grants worth £927,693. So far Scottish Land fund has grown to over £9m.

Other forms of environmental atonement will be for the multinational corporations to be constitutionally mandated to set-up permanent funds and grants (chaired by elected local people) for the local communities where they operate. The multinational corporations like Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company, ELF, Agip, et cetra should be constitutionally mandated to set aside upward of 15 % of operational budgets (per year) for environmental remediation.

They should also be made to stop gas flaring, limit spillages or pay taxes on every liter of gas flared or spilled. The questions to Nigerians are why is the goose that lay the golden eggs on which Nigeria prides itself 'giant of Africa neglected without consequences?' Is it bound out of vengeance, ignorance, or greed? Can someone point to a project owned by the Ogoni people after five decades of oil exploration, environmental exploitation, and enormous resources? Now is the time to push for justice for the Ogoni people. The delegates should remediate the injustice because Ogoni is also a part of Nigeria. The underlying message to corporations doing business in Nigeria should be that double standard and injustice to Nigerians and environment is unacceptable.

Why should the Land Use Decree of 1978, which negates land ownership by communities without compensation still in Nigeria's statue books? Why is the petroleum Act of 1969, which vested the entire ownership and control of all petroleum in, under or upon all land or Nigerian territorial waters in the Nigerian government, still in the statute books? These laws must be abrogated. Laws pertaining to Oil must be environmental friendly, and fashioned on a standardized, optimized, efficient, accountable, and transparent bases.

To prove analysts wrong that cover-up, revenge, and negligence is not on his agenda, President Goodluck Jonathan must instantaneously consult with and invite the new Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company, Mr. Ben Van Beurden, and the U.N Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, to discuss the immediate commencement of the clean-up of Ogoni ecosystem. He must immediately dismantle the Hydrocarbon agency (HYPREP) that he forced on Ogonis instead of implementing the UNEP recommendations. Environmental Injustice, double standard, vengeance and criminal negligence is unacceptable everywhere and Ogoni is no exception.

Korne Bari Nwike is an International Human and Environmental Rights advocate. Contact - customers.kgmarketing@gmail.com

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