The Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), an NGO, Rev. Nnimmo Bassey, had decried the non-implementation of the United Nations Environmental Report (UNEP) on Ogoni land.
Bassey expressed his displeasure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yenagoa.
He said two years after the submission of the report, nothing concrete had been done to conserve and restore the environment of Ogoni land.
“Not much has happened in Goi community of Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers for instance, since the creation of Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Programme (HYPREP) to clean up the Niger Delta”, he said.
Bassey faulted the naming of the environmental clean-up agency HYPREP, saying that it was different from the recommendation of the UN agency.
According to him, it was wrong to christen a programme that was designed to clean hydrocarbon in an environment “Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration.”
“Is the agency meant to restore hydrocarbon to the environment or remove it from the environment?” he asked.
He blamed the ‘inappropriate’ naming on the agency and hasty take-off of the programme.
“They were in a hurry to create the body and that is why they did not bother to think well about the name, before making it public”, Nnimmo said.
He, however, called for the scrapping of HYPREP and replacing it with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recommendation.
According to him, the name recommended by UNEP for the agency was “Ogoni Environmental Restoration Agency.”
