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A foremost environmental activist, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, has urged the agency cleaning up Ogoni areas along the UNEP Report of 2011 to set aside N4.2Bn or $10m from the $360m so far paid into the fund to fund setting up of modular refineries and create jobs for youths in Ogoni areas of Rivers State.
Fyneface, the executive director of Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC), who made the suggestion on UN World Oceans Day 2022, said this would reduce artisanal refining and soot menace in Rivers State.
The YEAC executive told the new management of the Hydrogen Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) to HYPREP that the $10m is budgeted in the UNEP Report on Ogoni (2011) as stated on Table 53, page 227 and serial number 10 of the Report.
The activist who is strident in his calls for setting up modular refineries said the fund is right there in HYPREP coffer by virtue of the $360million communicated as so far received from Joint Venture (JV) partners.
He advised that the $10m be set aside to prepare and provide “Alternative Employment to those in Artisanal Refining” to prevent re-pollution during and after the cleanup”.
He also called HYPREP and their contractors handling the Ogoni cleanup exercise and water projects to speed-up the processes. He also wants them to ensure that the best technology, global best practices, and standards are adopted in performing their statutory duties in the area. This he said would fast-track the restoration of the Ogoni environment in a timely manner for the traditional livelihoods of the people including faming and fishing activities destroyed by decades of crude oil pollution to thrive again.
Read also: Pollution: FG plans health audit of Ogoni land residents
He submitted thus: “Some of the ways of providing the alternatives would include youth training for skilled participation in the Cleanup project and processes; preparing artisanal refiners in Ogoni communities for Modular Refineries; skills development and acquisition for employability in the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Train 7 Project and educational scholarships within and outside the country among others”.
Fyneface joined the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and all people of the world to mark 2022 World Environment Day (on Wednesday, June 8, 2022) to mark the day with the theme; “Only One Earth”.
He sued for what he called collective efforts for cleaner environment in Rivers State.
He called for stricter vigilance over diseases in the face of Covid-19 and Monkeypox.
YEAC called on Gov Nyesom Wike to make haste and appoint a Commissioner for Environment to drive the State environmental services, enforce environmental laws, and facilitate the city’s waste management and speedy restoration of Port Harcourt to its garden city status.
Wike had sacked the Commissioner, Igbiks Tamuna, on March 30, 2021. The commissioner was addressing a press conference on soot which had reached 650 far above the 72 per cent African average in the state capital. Wike was to explain the next day that the commissioner erred by writing to Julius Berger to stop work for whatever violations without approval from him (the governor).
Environment community in the state said the governor has simply forgotten the ministry and anything to do with rescuing the environment.
The governor recently sacked all the refuse collection contractors in the state leading to refuse mountains in the state. He has just appointed a 5-man task force to come to the rescue.
On this score, Fyneface has reminded the governor about his promise two years ago to engage 3000 sanitation marshals to help in the job.
The YEAC executive told the governor that this is another good time to fulfill the promise so they can help the Rivers State Waste Management Agency (RIWAMA) and even the newly constituted 5-Man Waste Removal Committee/Taskforce task force to save the city from refuse.
