OGONI ENVIRONMENT: TIME TO RESTORE HOPE and RESTORE LIFE

6 March 2015
Petition On Ogoni Environment from the Regional Conference of Asia-Pacific Right Livelihood Laureates

To: The President, Federal Republic of Nigeria

OGONI ENVIRONMENT: TIME TO RESTORE HOPE and RESTORE LIFE

More than half a Century of exploitation of petroleum resources in the Niger Delta has left the environment so polluted that the region that, once was a biodiversity hotspot, is now ranked one of the most polluted places on earth.

In response to this sorry state of affairs, Nigeria’s federal government mandated the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to conduct an assessment of the Ogoni environment, an area where active oil extraction has since 1993 been suspended due to popular action.

Ogoniland is a subset of the entire Niger Delta region. The state of its environment is emblematic of the whole. We note that this situation is replicated in other regions around the world where polluting extractive activities are being carried out.

We remember that Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of our RLA laureates (1994), was executed 20 years ago for standing with his people to demand protection of rights of his people to a safe environment from the Nigerian state.

The UNEP report indicated that the water in Ogoniland is polluted, with benzene (a carcinogen,) 900 times above World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards for drinking water. The lands are polluted in several places to a depth of five metres. UNEP also stated that it would require 25 years of work to restore the waters, and five years to restore the lands in that community.

We are concerned that almost four years after the release of the UNEP report, no significant step has been taken to implement its recommendations. We are even shocked to learn of moves by corporate interests to restart petroleum resources extraction in Ogoniland without first looking at the question of environmental restoration before restarting oil activities. This development will only compound the devastation and further diminish the livelihoods of the people and their chance of enjoying their lives in dignity.

We, the RLA Laureates and Observers meeting in Mumbai, India, demand as follows:

That all lovers of life and the Planet join us to demand that Ogoniland be declared an ecological disaster zone and call for an urgent clean up of the environment.
That the Nigerian government urgently provides potable water for the people across Ogoniland
That petroleum extraction activity should not be restarted in Ogoniland without the environment first being detoxified and restored.
That the Nigerian government commissions an assessment of the entire Niger Delta environment.
That all countries learn from the Ogoni ecological disaster and insist on free prior informed consent of citizens in communities and territories where resources are found before exploitation of such resources

Signed