This article has no title

After seeing the quantum of decontamination work being done by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project to remedy the heartless damage done to the soil of Ogoniland, it became difficult to pick which title best suits this article.

The first title that came to mind was “In Limbo in Ogoni Death Row”. Then came “Ogoninisation of Nigeria” and, finally, “Nigeria is a Crime Scene”. The first title uses death row cells, where condemned criminals await the hangman, as a metaphor for Ogoni people awaiting the death of their lives and livelihood, from the contamination of their land.

It is reminiscent of the way Saro-Wiwa and other members of the Ogoni-nine patiently waited for the hangman sent by General Sani Abacha to snuff out their lives under the supervision and watchful eyes of a military administrator.

“Ogoninisation of Nigeria” is a way of saying that the scorched earth that became the fate of Ogoniland awaits other communities with oil wells, petroleum refineries, crude and refined petroleum pipelines, petrol depots and stations. Petroleum products, with low viscosity, spread faster, wider and deeper than crude petroleum with higher viscosity.

“Nigeria is a Crime Scene” describes the continuous, cavalier, defilement of oil-producing communities by players in Nigeria’s oil sector, like International Oil Companies, Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited and its predecessor, regulators, and other government agencies and private organisations.

If you took a flying boat from Goi to Bomu, bent down to plant a mangrove tree, felt dizzy and had to be rushed back to the shore, after water was poured on your head, you will understand the depth of the injustice done with the hanging of Saro-Wiwa and the damage done to the soil, water, health and livelihood of the people of Ogoniland.

Apart from extremely hazardous health implications, the contamination degrades the soil, waterbodies and residential areas. This greatly impaired the lives and livelihood of farmers and fishermen in Ogoniland.

The irony is that fishmongers in Rivers State now get their fresh fish supply from Lagos State, a negation of the assumption that you cannot bring coal to Newcastle, whose last deep mine was incidentally closed in 2005 after the decline that started in the 1980s.

In 1993, the Federal Military Government, probably mindful of the irresponsible negligence of NNPC, IOCs and illegal artisanal refineries, asked United Nations Environment Programme to assess the level of degradation of the Niger Delta, using Ogoniland as a focal point. The UNEP study, which started in 2009, submitted its report to the Federal Government in 2011.

Among other things, the report found that the observed level of contamination was higher than the Nigerian government’s stated threshold, which suggests that the government was negligent in enforcing its own safety policies. Also, the failure of biological processes and surface crusts, resulting from burning, greatly hampered natural and cheaper pollution attenuation processes.

When spilled oil gets to their roots, plants die. And fish die in polluted rivers or move to safer regions. Poisonous volatile organic compounds, like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, alkanes, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons become more prevalent in affected communities.

These cause cancer, respiratory and neurological problems, infertility and blindness. Benzene, a carcinogen, was detected in both Ogoniland soil and the groundwaters. When inhaled, its particles, generated from illegal refineries, lead to the premature death of patients with underlying heart and lung diseases.

UNEP’s recommendations included decommissioning of drill assets that failed integrity assessment tests: discouragement of illegal refineries (but because of competition against IOCs, the report did not suggest trade cooperatives for the illegal refineries under government supervision); immediate oil spill remediations; and regular cleanup of contaminated soil and sediments.

In 2016, the Federal Ministry of Environment established the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project to implement the UNEP Report to remediate and restore polluted Ogoniland soil and groundwaters. The mandate included initiating and developing work programmes to remedy hydrocarbon-impacted areas; ensuring full recovery of the ecosystem; providing appropriate technologies for remediation of the soil and groundwater; and responding to future remediation needs.

HYPRED demarcated the pollution-impacted areas into three zones that could either be the low-impacted sites that affect only lands that include farmlands; the medium-impacted sites that include land and groundwater areas; and the high-level impacted sites that include residential areas where people reside.

By the way, anyone living in Lagos and other such high population density urban centres in Nigeria should be aware that, by this definition, they are indeed living in the high-level impacted areas with the petrol stations, petroleum product depots and petroleum products pipelines in their neighbourhoods.

With the potentially nationwide cleanup that HYPREP is likely to embark upon in the future, the $1bn said to have been earmarked for the cleanup cannot complete the job. HYPREP, the special-purpose vehicle set up to do the job, has already embarked upon a lot of activities that will require a lot of money in Ogoniland.

Some of the projects are a 100-bed hospital with facilities to treat cancer, a cottage hospital, and several solar-powered waterworks schemes to deliver potable water to both pollution-impacted communities and those free of pollution. It is also planning a power plant project.

The highly ambitious Centre of Excellence and Environmental Restoration, recommended by the UNEP Report, is under construction. Its mandate is to train experts in environmental and monitoring skills; teach livelihood skill sets; assist members of the community with business plans; and, where necessary, enable local and foreign training for qualified members of the communities.

Yet HYPREP is carrying out its core responsibility of land and water remediation, replanting of mangroves in the rivers that have been cleaned, and training youths that have been forcibly weaned away from land and fish farming livelihoods by the oil pollution.

If no one will mind what may appear to be a repetition of facts, it is necessary to reiterate that the purpose of the decontamination project is to get the people back to their original occupation of farming and fishing.

The good news is that grass is already re-growing in some parts of highly-impacted Ogoniland, even in the dry season. This work, though very expensive, must continue so that the lives and livelihoods of the communities in Ogoniland can be restored.

Though the international green lobby insists that fossil fuels must be phased out, because of its negative global warming effect, it will take a long time to phase it out. But NNPCL and the IOCs must dedicate funds to research for technology that can prevent or control future contamination of the soil and water of petroleum mining, refining and storage communities.

The government should increase the decontamination budget; intensify and extend the cleanup to the other parts of the Niger Delta and the rest of Nigeria; encourage the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency to be prompt in monitoring and ensuring remediation in affected communities.

In addition, state governments should discourage private boreholes and empower municipal water corporations to take responsibility for potable water. Because pollution is practically nationwide, state waterworks should drill water from aquifers far below contaminated soils in communities that host petrol depots and stations.

Australian poet, Gemma Troy, who said, “Your words can plant gardens or burn whole forests down,” may be telling players in Nigeria’s petroleum sector to be more cautious in the way they carry out their operations.

Twitter@lekansote1, lekansote.com