UN to Assess 300 Oil Polluted Sites in Nigeria's Ogoniland

Teams of experts will conduct field-based assessments at more than 300 sites to identify the impacts of oil on land, water, agriculture, fisheries and air, as well as the indirect effects on biodiversity and human health.

The move follows a request to the UN by the Federal Republic of Nigeria and forms part of the broader government-led peace and reconciliation process in Ogoniland.

The UN Environment Programme, UNEP, will undertake the assessment in association with the UN Development Programme with the assistances of local communities and partners.

The communities of the four different Local Government Areas in Ogoniland have agreed to support UNEP in its mission to the Niger Delta. In return, UNEP has committed to conduct the mission in a manner that maximizes benefits to local communities through employment, capacity-building activities, information and consultation.

Children carry water near gas flares at Shell's Obigbo oilfield, near Port Harcourt, Nigeria. (Photo by Peter Roderick courtesy ELAW)

Senior officials from UNEP were in Abuja Monday to seal the final details of the assessment, which is expected to be complete by the end of 2008.

The UNEP team in Abuja will be holding talks with Nigerian environment minister Dr S.O. Okopido; the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency; the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, and officials of other UN agencies in the country.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said, "The assessment will seek to identify, evaluate and minimize the immediate and long-term human, social, health and economic impacts of oil contamination in Ogoniland, as well as those related to environmentally and economically important ecosystems".

"We will be deploying several teams of international and local experts in order to conduct field-based assessments in over 300 sites to identify the impacts of oil on environmental systems such as land, water, agriculture, fisheries and air - as well as the direct and indirect effects on biodiversity and human health," Steiner said.

On the basis of the assessment findings, UNEP will make recommendations for the appropriate remediation activities needed to rehabilitate the land to a condition that is environmentally acceptable according to international standards.

The Ogoniland mission will be conducted by the Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, which leads UNEP's work in areas of the world where the environment is impacted by conflicts or disasters, or where the environment is a factor contributing to conflict and disaster impacts.

Based in Geneva, the branch has conducted operations in more than 25 countries since its inception in 1999, and published 18 flagship environmental assessment reports.

In 2007, the branch is also carrying out assessments, capacity-building or cleanup activities in Afghanistan, Liberia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia.

The UNEP project in Ogoniland will be run from a main field office in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, but smaller community liaison offices will be opened in the communities of Eleme, Tai, Khana and Gokana.

Environmental impacts documented by past studies include oil spills, gas flaring, water contamination and construction of pipelines across productive farmland. The people have suffered from fumes, heat and combustion gases, which have resulted in higher rates of asthma, other respiratory diseases, gastro-enteritis and cancer.

The assessment was announced just days before the 12th anniversary of the death of Ogoni author and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged by the military government of General Sani Abacha for murders of which he is widely believed to be innocent.

To address the problems of the Niger Delta's oil producing regions, in 1990 Saro-Wiwa launched the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, a non-violent movement for social and ecological justice.

From left: Lee Jasper, Ken Wiwa, William Boyd, Kadija Sesay, Helon Habila, Linton Kwesi Johnson, David A. Bailey, Dan Gretton and Anita Roddick at the Remember Saro-Wiwa launch, March 2005.

As leader of MOSOP, he accused the oil companies and the Nigerian government of waging an ecological war against the Ogoni, threatening their very survival.

In 1993, MOSOP handed Shell, Chevron, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company an ultimatum demanding some US$10 billion in accumulated royalties, damages and compensation, and "immediate stoppage of environmental degradation."

If the companies failed to comply, the Ogonis threatened mass action to disrupt their operations.

The Abacha regime responded by banning public gatherings and declaring that disturbances of oil production were acts of treason.

In 1994, Saro-Wiwa became a candidate for election to a constitutional conference proposed by Abacha.

Before the election, on May 21, 1994, soldiers and police arrived by helicopter in most Ogoni villages. On that day, four Ogoni chiefs who were members of MOSOP were murdered. Saro-Wiwa, head of an opposing faction within MOSOP, had been denied entry to Ogoniland on the day of the murders, but was arrested in connection with the killings.

A trial, condemned internationally as fraudulent, took place over many months. Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni men were convicted and hanged November 10, 1995. MOSOP observes Ogoni Martyrs Day every November 10.

Conflicts over environmental degradation of Ogoniland and oil royalties reaching the region have persisted.

In a paper last year, current MOSOP President Ledum Mitee wrote, "There has been a longstanding sense of injustice at the extraordinarily limited level of funds which find its way back to communities whose land are the source of oil revenues."

"The failure even to supply potable water and medical facilities to communities where oil extraction has taken place for 30 years is inexcusable," wrote Mitee.

Mitee recommends that as oil production in the area is again ramped up, an initial US$1 billion in environmental remediation funds be channeled to Ogoniland through an emergency taskforce on environment, the Environment Agency and community trusts.

Mitee advises against channeling funds through state and local governments where he says there are "notorious levels of corruption by office holders who have no accountability to the people they supposedly represent."

Visit the UNEP Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch website at: http://postconflict.unep.ch/ogoniland

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