By Francis Sadhere
Centre for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), a Non-Governmental organisation based in Warri, has charged the Federal Government to end gas flaring in the Niger Delta region.
Coordinator/CEO of the Centre, Comrade Sheriff Mulade gave this charge in a press statement made available to journalists in Warri, yesterday.
He stated that Gas flaring in Nigeria was not a new phenomenon, but that CEPEJ thinks that Nigerians only needed a leader like President Mohammadu Buhari who appears to have some level of integrity and political will to implement the law and bring gas flaring to a stop.
He lamented that President Olusegun Obasanjo and the then National Assembly made some promises and comments but that at the end of the day, those promises and comments were politicised.
Comrade Mulade said the immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan also made the same promises and nothing came out of them, hoping that President Buhari will end gas flaring in the Niger Delta region and “salvage our environment for us.”
According to CEPEJ: “Gas flaring as a result of oil exploration and exploitation by oil firms, has destroyed the entire ecosystem and with the prevailing climate change except government takes proactive steps, Nigeria is not safe.”
“This issue of gas flaring resulted from corruption and this NGO is very happy that the president, during his campaigns, promised to stamp out corruption. We know that he may not end corruption completely, but we are expecting a drastic drop in corruption in this country and successive governments can follow his steps until it is completely eradicated.
“Another problem in the oil and gas sector and why gas flaring has continued in Nigeria is that the oil multinationals are the ones regulating the Nigeria National Petroleum Company. The multinationals dictate to the Nigerian government. This means that we are an independent nation only on paper and not in reality, because the multinationals are the ones in charge of our economy.
“Nigeria is running the economy with 95 percent revenue accruing from oil and gas and these multinationals are the ones running the oil and gas sector. If the IOCs decide to shut down their oil and gas facilities then Nigeria is doomed. So with this in mind, government is only romancing and pleading with them to end gas flaring in the country because FG does not have the power to stop it on its own.”
CEPEJ also lamented that the affected communities were handicapped and do not have any say because they do not have the wherewithal to fight the government.
The centre noted that the country has conflicting agencies where laws and penalties were duplicated.
“In the area of environment, we have the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), the Nigeria Environmental Standards and Regulatory Agency (NESDRA) and the Ministry of Environment. These agencies are in conflict when it comes to processes and procedures on environmental matters. For example, when there is a spill, the community cries out and the multinational companies will invite the Ministry of Environment and the other agencies for a Joint Investigation Venture (JIV). At the JIV, the multinational oil company will provide the logistics to convey the ministry of environment, NOSDRA and NESDRA to the venue of the spill.
“So at the end of the day, the community will be pitched against four others. The agencies will say it is a third party intervention and the community will protest and will be labeled as stubborn youths who have taken over the area and so on and so forth.
“This is why CEPEJ is advocating that these agencies should be collapsed into one with one process and regulation. The agency should be fully independent and devoid of government interference. The agency should also be adequately funded, otherwise, the corruption we are talking about will not end,” CEPEJ noted.
“We are also advocating that the headquarters of NOSDRA should be relocated to the Niger Delta region so that when there are spills the DG of NOSDRA could go down to the spill locations and see things for himself. We expect the DG and his directors to visit some of these areas that are heavily affected by oil spill and see things for themselves.
“But what we see today is that the DG is in Abuja, while the affected communities are far away here in the Niger Delta region suffering. These are people whose means of livelihood have been destroyed by the massive spills in their communities and who do not have money to go to Abuja to register their grievances. We want NOSDRA to be close to the people. That is why we are advocating that the headquarters should be relocated to the Niger Delta area where there are so many towns that can accommodate the office. With this development, NOSDRA can take time to visit the affected communities to ascertain the level of devastation caused by the spills. They should not see the affected environment as a Niger Delta environment, but as Nigeria environment that has been destroyed through the exploitation and exploration of oil and gas,” it added.
