News that Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, would be leaving soon to the United Nations as Deputy Secretary-General may have caused jubilation in some quarters. It may even have caused indifference in some other places, but in Ogoni land, it must be causing consternation if not shock. This is because ‘Queen Amina’ as most Niger Deltans now call her is practically regarded as an Ogoni woman; all due to her down-to-earth approach in seeing to the successful flag-off of the much-touted Ogoni Clean-Up (June 2, 2016). This came after dashed hopes between 2011 and 2016 when the UNEP Report was submitted to the Federal Government with attachment of $1billion to clean up Ogoni.
And, of all influences that wheeled the December 10, 2016 senatorial rerun election from an obvious political party to a new choice, Amina Mohammed is regarded as the most. This must be why the lords of the federal ruling party put her on a plane to Port Harcourt few hours to December 10 to join 12 governors, senators and some ministers to say a word to the Ogoni people at a mega rally. She simply told them that a vote for her party’s candidate was stamp of certainty for the actual cleaning of Ogoni oil fields polluted ages ago. When the results turned in, her party won with about 125,000 votes against about 25,000 for the previous winner (2015) before the courts upturned it. This is how much Mohammed is regarded in Ogoni areas.
Mohammed approached her task as Minister of Environment and team lead of the Ogoni Clean-Up with obvious passion. It is on record that nobody had been able to carry all Ogonis along on the issue of pollution and clean up; but she did, else, no one could have staged the flag-off on any inch of Ogoni soil. ‘Queen Amina’ brought an aspect of her character, fearsome doggedness, to bear in her mission to Ogoni. Unlike many others in the past, she went into the nooks and crannies of Ogoni, touched the acids, tasted the ‘poisons’, and came back to tell Aso Rock what she saw and what poisoned food tasted like. She told this writer in an interview in Port Harcourt later that there was no other way to fight the Ogoni cause without feeling like an Ogoni, and no way to feel so without tasting what they tasted. The UNEP Report said water in some parts of Ogoni contained 900 percent higher levels of benzene than recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for human toleration.
In the months, weeks and days before the flag-off, the minister was frequenting Ogoni, meeting with all stakeholders, and testing the grounds. What could be in her that made even stones to melt so she could achieve her target? ‘Queen Amina’ disclosed this to BusinessDay before the flag-off day: “I am allergic to injustice. Injustice is injustice, to man or to animal. That is the way I am. Wherever you find yourself, you must fight that fight so far as it is about your humanity”.
Mohammed had handled a $1billion fund before; the one by the UNEP Report ($1billion) is only the second. Could this be why she was picked upon by President Muhammadu Buhari to lead the Ogoni charge? The Minister would not hazard a guess. She rather confessed thus: “I do not believe anybody had any idea that he was going to put me in Environment. I did not even know he was going to nominate me. It was a surprise. My career track has proved what I know, that whatever you throw at me in the civil service, I will embrace it because I am a daughter of a civil servant. I was brought up in a family where integrity matters, name matters, performance matters, and you cannot walk past anyone where you see injustice. That does not work. It does not matter where it comes from. It is about humanity. I do not believe that you can fight a fight without experiencing it, even if it is for 24 hours.”
She seemed to have adopted her special strategy out of her convictions and character; “If you think you can prescribe solution to Ogoni people from Abuja, it is absolute nonsense. You must have to come down here and feel what they are going through. Once you experience that, you can go back and tell anybody anything because you have the conviction. You do not have to be referring to a book with figures you are not even sure of. So, when I say to people that it is unacceptable that a people should eat a type of food with the level of toxicity in it, it is because I have tasted it. Buhari has asked us to do a job, it is a privilege I think it is a privilege because millions of other Nigerians could do it, perhaps better than the way I am doing it. So, I have to put in my best, knowing that I am answerable to the Almighty. So, I do the best that I can do and I leave the rest to God.”
Amina Mohammed can rightly be described as a woman of both ends or of many parts; a woman who could easily touch both ends of the society. She has such high class upbringing, huge education, high-flying career, and international exposure plus a bi-racial parentage, yet, she melted into the Ogoni rural mentality to feel what they feel. Thus, the moment the former prime minister of Portugal and upcoming Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, announced Mohammed as his choice of deputy Sec-Gen, Nigeria held its head high.
Observers say that Amina’s brilliant performance when he led Nigeria’s delegation to the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris, France last year was perhaps, a reason for her UN job this time around.
Before that, in November to be precise, President Buhari had just approved her nomination by President Paul Kagame to join his team of ‘Advisors for the Reform of the African Union.’
Amina Mohammed has worked with deviant youths before when she was part of a group to reform youths in the North East. Born in Kaduna State, Northern Nigeria in 1961, she married to a Gombe State indigene, and so hails from Gombe Local Council Area of the state. Her mother is a British, while her father is a Nigerian. She has six children.
In 2005, Amina coordinated the Debt Relief Funds of $1billion towards achievement of Millennium Development goals in Nigeria. She also coordinated development of a Fully Participatory National Action Plan.
Her profile further indicates that “Amina Mohammed has been working in the field of development for more than 30 years both in the public sector and the private sector. Prior to her current appointment, she was the CEO and founder of the think tank Centre for Development Policy Solutions.
“Previously, she worked as senior adviser to the President of Nigeria on Millennium Development Goals for six years. In this position, she was in charge of designing and developing government projects to reduce poverty around the country. Between 2002 and 2005, she worked in the United Nations Millennium Project as a coordinator of the Task Force on Gender and Education.
“In 1991, Amina Mohammed founded Afri-Projects Consortium, a multidisciplinary firm of Engineers and Quantity Surveyors, and from 1991 to 2001 she was its Executive Director. Between 1981 and 1991, she worked with Archcon Nigeria in association with Norman and Dawbarn United Kingdom.
“On November 11, 2015 Mohammed was sworn in as the Environment Minister in Buhari’s cabinet. She has also served on many international advisory boards and panels such as the Gates Foundation and the UN Secretary General’s Global Sustainability Panel.
Since April 5, 2016, Mohammed has served as Chair of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). Amina Mohammed received the National Honours Award of the Order of the Federal Republic in 2006 and was inducted in the Nigerian Women’s Hall of Fame in 2007.”
Many say the appointment is apt; a round peg in a round hole. Her manners, carriage, discipline, strict stance on issues, hunger for justice, poverty alleviation, anti-corruption and due process point to Amina Mohammed as the right person to spell Nigeria anew before the world, and a good copy of ‘Change that starts from self’ in Buhari’s Nigeria.
Ignatius Chukwu
