... Residents Lament Lack Of Drinking Water,

ABOUT 200, 000 persons in Goi Community, the most devastated community in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State have been displaced following high level of environmental degradation in the area.

Investigations showed that a total negligence by government to embark on a sincere clean up exercise in the area resulted in the ugly development.

Unfortunately, however, some of the neighbouring communities where the Goi villagers fled are also devastated, as the people there also lack good drinking water.

They lament that they still drink the water contaminated by oil from facilities operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company in the Ogoni.

Some of the elders who spoke with The Guardian disclosed that government only sends three tankers to supply water to about 200,000 persons in the communities; a situation they described as very pitiable since it has further endangered the lives of the people, as the tankers are dirty and unhygienic.

It was observed that the inattention to the devastated environment resulted in incessant oil fire, which however, poses serious health threat to the people.

The situation, it was gathered, forced the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Environmental Project, (HYPREP), an agency set up by the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources to clean up the Niger Delta region to install a massive bill board warning the people to flee from the area.

A visit to the community showed no sign of the Federal Government presence. There was also no sign of humans except the HYPREP billboard with the inscription’ “Public Notice; Prohibition, contaminated sites please keep off”.

A Chief in the community, Mr. Eric Barizaa Dooh grieved over the situation, saying since HYPREP asked them to flee the community, there has not been any attempt to restore the environment to enable the indigenes return to their ancestral homes. “It is unbelievable that we are going through this kind of ill treatment. We have been chased out of our community due to the activities of multinational oil companies from whom we did not even benefit anything. And since they chased us away, there has been no physical action to remediate our environment; all we keep hearing is grammar. We’ve been completely abandoned with neither no hope nor a future”.

He said his people are making efforts to reach out to non- governmental organisations (NGO) to assist them in sinking bore holes since the government abandoned them.

“We are dying; we now live in strange lands where we cannot do any thing. Our sources of livelihood are gone; our children can no longer go to school and government has not shown any concern at all; they carry on as if we do not exist. In fact, as far as they are concerned, we do not exist. The continuous neglect by government despite our cries shows that the Nigerian government is heartless.”

The Women leader of the community, Mrs. Veronica Kobani said the ugly development has thrown the people into permanent poverty and immense suffering.

In a telephone interview, a human right activist and leader of Ogoni Solidarity Forum, Celestine Akpobari described the situation as frustrating and unbelievable, especially now that the country has a Niger Deltan as the president who should have better understanding and show compassion towards the plight of the Niger Delta people.

He said that the Ogonis have so far been non-violent in their struggle but threatened that the people may re-strategise to adopt violent means if nothing was done urgently because according to him, government seems to listen to only violent methods.

His words: “The reality of the situation is that it now reduces the live span of the people; pregnant women now give birth to disabled children while there is also an increased rate of heart problems. We are worried that these things have continued to happen even now that our own brother Goodluck Jonathan is the President.

“So since government seems to reward only violent struggles and ignore the non-violent ones, we may be pushed to re-strategise our struggle to become violent.”

He urged Federal Government to implement the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report to the letter whereby the government was mandated to set up an Ogoni environment restoration agency to clean up the Ogoni areas and not for the pollutants to set up an agency called HYPREP.

“It is the duty of the government to prevail on Shell to restore the environment of Goi and other Ogoni and Niger Delta communities in line with the recommendations of UNEP report.”

Akpobari lamented that rather than setting up Ogoni Environment Restoration Agency as prescribed by UNEP, the government had set up HYPREP, which has only been wasting money in setting up bill boards that focus on oil theft”.

Efforts to reach the Head of Communication, HYPREP, Mr. Minx Ogbunge proved abortive as his phones rang without being picked.