The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, has debunked a statement credited to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, on the clean-up of oil spill in Ogoni land, saying the implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme report, UNEP has not begun in the oil rich areas.
NOSDRA had last week said that the Federal Government had commenced the clean-up of Ogoniland as recommended by UNEP.
MOSOP President, Legborsi Pyagbara, said in a statement on Tuesday that there was no evidence to show that the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Programme had started the clean-up of the massive oil spills in the region.
Pyagbara, who described the statement by NOSDRA as the “resurrection of the strategy of deceit” employed by the Federal Government and a brazen falsehood, urged the people of Ogoni and members of the public to disregard the agency’s story of remediation in Ogoniland.
Lamenting that the falsehood was coming at a time when global pressure for the implementation of the UNEP report was intensified, the MOSOP president stated that NOSDRA’s claim suggested attempts to play down the global persuasion to clean up Ogoni instead of embracing transparency in resolving the environmental problem.
He said that “MOSOP condemns the resurrection of the strategy of deceit by the Nigerian Government to delude, confuse and mislead unsuspecting Nigerians and the international community that it has begun implementing the UNEP report on Ogoniland.
“The Director-General of National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), Peter Idabor, had on behalf of the Federal Government brazenly proclaimed the falsehood during an interview with a news agency in Abuja last week.
“Many months ago, this same NOSDRA DG also made similar assertions to journalists. We wonder if NOSDRA is now the mouthpiece of HYPREP. We would like to reaffirm for the umpteenth time that there is no evidence on ground supporting the claim.
“The approach is therefore most irresponsible and unfortunate. MOSOP has thus called on the general public and friends of the Ogoni people to disregard the concocted report aimed at deceiving and beguiling them into believing that remediation and restoration of the degraded Ogoni environment by government have started.”