The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has cautioned the HydroCarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), the agency responsible for the management of the Ogoni cleanup, against embezzling the Ogoni water project funds recently approved by Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari.
President of MOSOP, Fegalo Nsuke, made the call at the National Secretariat of MOSOP, the Peace and Freedom Center, Bori, Ogoni, according to a statement by Alex Akori, Secretary General of MOSOP.
Nsuke said HYPREP has been riddled with express corruption, noting that the corruption in HYPREP has been attested to by some members of its management. The MOSOP President expressed worries that the systemic corruption for which HYPREP has become widely known would engulf the water project funds.
Nsuke also called on HYPREP to ensure it sticks to the decision to implement an integrated water project for Ogoni. The MOSOP President said any deviation from the implementation of an integrated water project for all of Ogoni will amount to shortchanging Ogoni interests in the cleanup project.
He said he was fully aware and had been earlier briefed about the decision to implement an integrated water project for Ogoni and noted that given the rate at which underground water contamination travels, the entire Ogoni and beyond would already have been contaminated.
The MOSOP President further spoke of the need to clean up the entire Niger Delta region to secure Ogoni if it becomes eventually cleaned. Nsuke said what was going on in Ogoni at the moment and had been going on in the name of cleanup was an express approval to official corruption.
“HYPREP has not cleaned Ogoni. What they have done is to loot and feed fat on the struggles, blood and pains of the Ogoni people and it is unfortunate that this robbery has been official and remains unchecked despite several cries” Nsuke said.
He said there is need for an investigation into the activities of HYPREP to unearth the massive corruption that has consumed the Ogoni cleanup program and made it such a ridicule for the state.
