Over 200 experts around the world are right now chasing the minister of environment for the $1 billion contracts to clean up Ogoni land.
This is as one of the experts, with partners from two European countries, says most contractors have decoded the body language of the Muhammadu Buhari administration to perceive ‘seriousness’ at last in the clean up project.
Most hotels in Port Harcourt were filled to the brim in the past one-week when the minister of state for environment, Amina Mohammed, practically relocated to Port Harcourt to perfect the visit of the President and the flag off of the clean-up exercise.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which carried out study of the Ogoni spills, had awarded $1 billion as remediation fund for Ogoni environment since 2011.
BusinessDay gathered that right away, experts around the world began to hover around the Federal Government and the Federal Ministry of Environment, the Presidency, and Ogoni power blocs for contracts.
Now, hope seems to be high again that cleaning and remediation jobs may spill out for soil spill control. Insiders estimate over 2000 jobs going on at the same time from excavation jobs, trucking (requiring over 200 trucks carting away soils to and from remediation sites), machine operators, and lab experts.
Businesses are expected to boom around remediation sites, as numerous artisans would be needed to provide private services. Food vendors and article sellers are said to be warming up in hundreds that may flock to the sites.
BusinessDay found out that not all the guests occupying the rooms in top hotels were government officials.
Many are said to be experts from most parts of the world especially oil countries where pollution and oil spill had occurred in the past. Some of the experts came with evidence of successes in the clean up of Alaska oil spill in Valdes and the British Petroleum mega spill in the Atlantic Ocean in the US that caused huge uproar some years back.
One of the experts chasing the minister and other top ‘contacts’ that may have a say in award of jobs in Ogoni clean up the experts are putting forward different remediation options and technological alternatives to the minister.
Fears are rife that the over 200 approaches may pose difficulty in selection of what may be approved for Ogoni, because the outcomes may not be the same, the experts said.
Some of the most viable technological options being presented to the Federal Government are said to include the Insitu Thermal system, the biodegradable approach, and the thermal absorbent approach.
A Nigerian expert who studied in the US and worked in the BP oil spill remediation said the most viable is the thermal absorbent system which he said involves processing the soil cut off from affected site in a location and returning it safe an rich while the oil is recovered. He said this could make Ogoni land very fertile again.
Other experts said the reason for hope is that the government may share out the four local councils that make up Ogoni into parcels to different contractors. The fear may be that different Ogoni communities may get different outcomes.
The source said the results may not show up immediately but may manifest much later. It was therefore advised that the federal government must create very strict implementation standards to avoid such a scenario.
The experts interviewed said they were certain that Ogoni clean up is now real and that contracts would surely be soon awarded, even fixing between three and six months for actual clean up to begin.
