Francis Sadhere
The Center For Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), a Niger Delta based Non-Governmental Organisation, today, urged the incoming government of the President-elect, General Mohammadu Buhari (rtd), to tackle environmental issues with all seriousness, saying successive governments have played lip services to issues of environment, especially in the oil rich Niger Delta region.
Speaking with our correspondent at his office in Warri, the National Coordinator/CEO, CEPEJ, Comrade Sheriff Mulade called on Buhari to collapse all the various environment agencies in the country into one, saying the various agencies with their different environment policies have not helped cobbed the continuous degradation and pollution of the environment in the Niger Delta region.
He said: “There are too many agencies handling one particular area of the environment. We have the ministry of environment with its own policies in terms of oil spill, clean up, and other areas. We also have NOSDRA and NESDRA that also have different environmental policies and procedures. So we want the incoming government to merge all these agencies so that we can have one environmental policies and procedures.”
He said the continuous exploration of oil in the Niger Delta region has subjected the people of the region to untold hardship as their only means of livelihood, which is fishing and farming, have been destroyed by massive pollutions by the oil companies.
Mulade noted that until government takes the issue of pollution seriously, the people of the Niger Delta region will continue to suffer the impact of the activities of multinational oil companies operating in the region.
“The Niger Delta environment has been totally destroyed as a result of the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas activities in the region. And government is the major beneficiary of these activities. The traditional occupation of fishing and farming of the people of the area has been completely eroded. This is why most of the women and youths, in order to sustain their living, are finding ways to survive through illegal means which is dangerous to their health. We are very lucky that God in his infinite mercies has made this region not be afflicted with a lot of diseases that results from these kind of activities. So government must pay attention to these things,” Mulade said.
He lamented that both the Federal and State Government do not carry out Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) before embarking on any project in the country, saying that the incoming administration of Buhari must put a stop to this practice in other to make the environment safe for all Nigerians.
speaking on how the incoming government can maintain the existing peace in the country, Comrade Mulade advised Buhari to always listen to the cry of the masses, stressing that if he ignores their cries and refused to respond promptly to their demands , they will revolt against his government.
He advised that government should learn how to identify political protest from genuine protest and nip it on the bud before it escalates into full blown war, calling on Bihari to ensure that his government does not support political protest in the country.
He noted that though Nigerians are expecting a lot from the incoming administration, Nigerians should have it at the back of their minds that it is humans that run government, and they will need some time to process their plans.
“We believe that there are already laid down rules and procedures of government. It is not a new thing in government. So we believe that they will work maximally to have the support of the people. And we also believe that within the period of six months the people will have started seeing the outline of the new government for them to key into and follow. They will need to allow the civil societies, corporate organisations, and the populace to contribute and work with the government of the day. We believe that government cannot do it alone, so it has to lay its own policies for us to follow. And that will automatically bring peace,” Comrade Mulade said.
