Group urges FG to restrain from approving IOCs assets divestment
Omiete Blessing
A civil society organisation, We The People (WTP) has urged the Federal Government to exercise restraint in ratifying the International Oil Companies assets divestment.
The call was made yesterday, at a legal and environmental experts’ roundtable organised by the group in Port Harcourt.
Delivering his keynote address, a specialist in Petroleum and International Law and Policy at the University of Port Harcourt, Prof Ibiba Worika, advised the government to ensure that the companies address the pollution and other environmental concerns in the oil rich region before divesting.
He said “For us here in the Niger Delta, the divestment of IOCs is something that basically we are likely going to be at the receiving end, our environment has been essentially destroyed over the years due to decades of oil and gas exploration and development and historical pollution.
“I don’t think that it would be fair, I think the Federal government should exercise restraint on giving its approval so we can have a round table discussion where these concerns can truly be expressed and let’s see what it is that can be done to address these concerns.
Worika, threatened that should the government fail to do the needful soonest, CSOs in the region would be left with no other option but to institute legal action against the federal government and the IOCs.
“I have not heard of any instances where a local government area or a state government took it upon itself to sue an oil major for and on behalf of the communities. I have not seen that, but we still have them sharing the revenues from oil and gas exploration from all these communities.
“If this is not done then I fear that we may have to institute legal actions ahead of the divestment, restraining both the federal government and the oil companies concerned from divesting until these matters are looked into approximately and of course remediation, as well as compensation packages are arranged for the communities.”
In his remark, a former Bayelsa state Commissioner for Environment, Iniruo Wills accused Governors in the Niger Delta region, Ministers and Senators of abetting the unending environmental pollution.
Wills, who is an environmental advocate, stated that the political leaders have allowed the menace to continue because of the pecuniary benefits they receive.
He said, “Some of us are surprised that no state government in the Niger Delta is doing anything serious about abating the pollution in the region, so this is an opportunity to call on the individuals, I don’t like to fictions, but individuals like you and I who are holding the offices, the authority needed to do something.
“Some of them are in Abuja. Abuja is too far, we are in the Niger Delta to defend our territories, so if the kind of pollution and other environmental hazards that we have been singing songs about for 50 to 70 years are continuing, not just because of the people in Abuja or the oil companies.
“It is because somebody or people who are governors, senators, or ministers of petroleum from the Niger Delta have refused to do anything about it. The day that one governor in the Niger Delta considers that this thing is a danger to my people and is going to deploy the full weight of the executive authority and resources to deal with it, this madness will come to an end.”
Earlier, the Executive Director of WTP, Ken Henshaw, said the aim of the event was to galvanise professionals to tinker legal options that would be deployed to hold IOCs accountable for their environmental carnage before they allowed to leave.
Henshaw, said it would be difficult to hold the companies accountable for their pollution of the region once they leave the shores of the country, hence they need to be tackled to do the needful in record time.
