Ogoniland: “The only ceremonies we do now are weekly funerals,” activists cry out

President Muhammadu Buhari may have ordered the cleaning up of Ogoniland, Rivers State; but activists believe that one of the bodies saddled with that job is a total fraud.

Canoes lie in oil-slicked mud on the shore of the Bodo creek in Ogoniland near Nigeria's oil hub city of Port Harcourt December 4, 2012. (Reuters / Akintunde Akinleye) / Reuters. — Canoes lie in oil-slicked mud on the shore of the Bodo creek in Ogoniland near Nigeria’s oil hub city of Port Harcourt December 4, 2012. (Reuters / Akintunde Akinleye) / Reuters.

The Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP) is a complete joke riddled with fraud, Ogoni indigene and activist Akpobari Celestine has told Buhari.

“HYPREP officials neglected Ogoni people and went to stay in Bayelsa where they ride about in bullet proof cars while people die in Ogoniland,” he said during a breakfast show on STV, Monday.

Akpobari Celestine grew up in Ogoniland. He says the place is now a shadow of itself.

“In our land now, people rejoice when you live up to 35. The only ceremonies we do every week are burials.”

Environmental activist Desmond Majekodunmi who was also on the show decried the state of Ogoni.

Both activists praised Buhari for fast-tracking the cleanup of Ogoni but warned that only “clean” agencies be saddled with the cleanup.

Ogoni land used to be a land of bliss and peace, the activists said.

In 1956, four years before Nigerian Independence, Royal Dutch/Shell in collaboration with the British government found a commercially viable oil field on the Niger Delta and began oil production in 1958.

In a 15-year period from 1976 to 1991 there were reportedly 2,976 oil spills of about 2.1 million barrels of oil in Ogoniland accounting for about 40% of the total oil spills of the Royal Dutch/Shell company worldwide.

The clean up could take up to 30 years.

…meanwhile, the funerals will continue.