…Trains Rivers Communities on Evidence Gathering
Barikui Felix
Following years of pollution in the Niger Delta and oil multinationals’ decision to divest their investments in the region, a non-governmental organisation, Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, has called on the government to stop the pollution and nullify all processes.
The organisation said it was unacceptable for the companies to pollute the Niger Delta environment for over fifty years of their operations and then just walkaway.
HOMEF said it was unthinkable how government could accept such processes despite the mess caused by the oil multinationals in the Niger Delta region.
The Executive Director of HOMEF, Reverend Nnimmo Bassey, made the call while speaking with journalists during a training on evidence gathering organised by the organisation for communities in Port Harcourt City Council of Rivers State. Bassey said the government has failed Nigerians regarding divestment, as the communities were not consulted before approvals were made.
He accused most new companies of having ties with the divesting companies.
“At this time, the Nigerian government has completely failed the people regarding divestment. The people were not consulted, the companies that are pretending to buy off the international oil companies – some of them are being set up by the divesting companies, and they are the ones giving out money for another company to buy from them.
“How government would even endorse those things makes them very questionable. So we believe that it’s never too late for the government to retrace it steps and all the approvals so far should be nullified and the process should be more transparent.
“The oil companies cannot walk away from the pollution they have inflicted on the Niger Delta for over fifty years, it’s unthinkable, it’s unacceptable and government cannot sentence the people to this kind of harm,” Bassey insists.
Speaking on the significance of the training, Bassey said there is a need for the communities to be taught how to get actionable evidence in case of pollution to enable them to get justice for their environment.
He said over the years there has been a marked improvement on environmental monitoring and reportage due to the consistent trainning of locals by the organisation.
“Today we are specifically looking at evidence gathering. Not only monitoring and reporting what you are seeing, we are looking at what kind of evidence can you collect that’s actionable? What evidence can be accepted by the courts? How can you get legal help if there is a problem that you need to take to court and who is the person that’s in the best position to gather evidence that can be useful? These are the things we are focusing on today,” he stated.
The HOMEF Executive Director noted that fighting for environmental justice is becoming more critical hence the need for credible evidences.
“The cases are getting more complicated and we need to have competent individuals within the communities who can provide evidence because they live in the communities, they experience the problems and so they are the best to speak up and present actionable evidence when necessary,” he added.
In his remarks, the head of Firisika Polo, Marine Base, Chief Samuel Iwo, appreciated HOMEF for bringing the training to his community, assuring that the lessons learnt would be documented and remain useful to the community.
“What we have learnt today is beneficial to everybody including our unborn children and I thank HOMEF for organizing this programme for us in our community,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of women of the community, Mrs Grace Timi noted that women are most hit whenever anything happens to the environment and further commended HOMEF for coming to teach them about their environment and how to monitor and get actionable evidence to demand for environmental justice each time there is a pollution in their community.
She also promised to galvanise other community women to be environmental monitors.
“With the knowledge that we have garnered from this session, we are going back into our communities to educate other members of the communities especially women like us and with that knowledge, we know that once we find any pollution, we understand that as monitors we have a responsibility to ensure that this pollution don’t continue, so we have to report to the appropriate authorities and follow through until we get the needed justice,” Mrs Timi assured
