As I write this, I want to let us understand that our politicians need to be reminded that they need not use every opportunity to score cheap political points at the detriment of we Nigerians. I will not only be discussing this recent issue, but will be discussing different issues that affect opposition parties and the PDP, how they react to issues, their motives behind their reactions, and the timeliness of their reaction.
I am starting this with yesterday's reaction of ACN on the Bayelsa State fire incident in January. My questions to the ACN are: Why have they (ACN) waited till March to register their displeasure? What have they done as a party that has the interest of the nation at heart about the incident? Have they made any recommendation to the Federal Government on the incident?. To me I do not think it is enough for you as a party to come out to condemn the handling of an incident, that happened Months ago when you have never proffered any other solution to that effect. below is the news report on the incident by the Nation Newspaper.
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) yesterday criticised the Federal Government’s handling of the gas pipeline explosion off the Bayelsa coast in January.
The party said its effect has worsened the plight of the already neglected people in the Koluama community and its environs.
In a statement in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, ACN said the kid gloves with which the government has treated the company responsible for the disaster - Chevron - contrasts sharply with the way oil firms responsible for pollution are treated elsewhere around the world..
It said the government’s poor handling of the whole issue, which has worsened the people’s misery and hardship, poisoned their river and ruined their main source of livelihood (fishing), shows total lack of protection for them, while the oil firm responsible is engaging in tokenism in the name of response, instead of being made to pay a massive fine in addition to a thorough clean-up of the affected area.
The party said: ‘’For a community that is already neglected, with no potable water, electricity, schools or health facilities, the Chevron gas pipeline disaster - which triggered a perpetual fire that enveloped communities with toxic smoke - is a double whammy, and the response of the government has deepened the pains of the residents and raised the fears that they could face a repeat of the 1953 disaster that wiped off the ancient Koluama community.
President Goodluck Jonathan has visited the Koluama community only once since the incident, and even then all he did was to praise the people for their ‘peaceful’ reaction to the disaster that has befallen them. He has neither gone back there nor warned the company. And the fact that the government officials, including the Minister of Petroleum who also visited the area, did so in a Chevron helicopter and accepted rides in the firm’s boat – as reported in the media - has virtually shut their mouths from any meaningful protest.
‘’Contrast this with the way the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the US was handled - President Barack Obama visited the affected site three times in as many weeks, the firm was compelled to make huge funds available for clean-up operations, in addition to huge fines, issuance of more licenses for oil exploration in the sea was stopped and a senior BP official had to go - and one will see a government (in Nigeria) that has allowed oil firms to ride roughshod over its people.
‘’This week, Brazilian prosecutors say they will bring criminal charges against 17 executives from Chevron and drilling contractor Transocean, after a new leak of crude. The executives have also been barred from leaving the country until the investigation concludes.
‘’In February 2011, a court in Ecuador fined the same Chevron that is being treated with kid gloves in Nigeria $8 billion for polluting the Amazon Region. Nine months later, the Brazilian government slammed the same Chevron with a $28 million fine for causing an oil spill off the country’s coast, while prosecutors demanded $10.6 billion for environmental damage. Yet, in Nigeria, Chevron and other oil firms have decimated farmlands, polluted rivers and waterways and exposed many to toxic wastes and fumes through their carelessness, without facing any fine or being made to pay compensation to the affected people. This is not right and should stop immediately,’’ ACN said.
The party urged the various individuals and groups that have been campaigning to ensure a better deal for communities in the oil region to call the attention of the federal government, especially the President, to the need for erring oil companies to pay compensation for their acts of omission, clean up the mess they have made in the region and pay huge fines that could serve as a deterrent and encourage best practises in their oil exploration and related activities.
‘’The government must stop acting in a manner that suggests that it prefers oil companies to its own people, or that all it is interested in are the windfalls from oil exploration, rather than the well-being of the people in the oil communities,’’ it said. ‘’If a pollution in the President’s backyard can be treated with so much levity by government officials and rapacious oil firms, there is need for all Nigerians to worry,’’ the party added.
From this report, the president only visited the site once, it is sad for us as nation and as a people.
No comments:
Post a Comment