Lawyer and activist, Femi Falana, SAN, has urged the Federal Government to release the report of the forensic auditing of the Niger Delta Development Corporation (NDDC) to enable oil producing communities demand accountability from contractors that abandoned development projects in the area, despite being mobilised.
He made the request at the public presentation of a new report by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) entitled “We are all Vulnerable. How Lack of Transparency and Accountability is Fueling Human Rights Violations in the Niger Delta” held at Radisson Blu Hotel, Isaac John Street, GRA, Ikeja.
Falana also urged government to inaugurate the board of the Niger Delta Corporation, adding that, “it is illegal and unjust not to reconstitute the NDDC board. It makes room for illegality.
“All the contracts awarded either by a sole administrator or interim management are illegal and liable to be set aside because sole administrator is unknown to the NDDC Act.”
Falana added that the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, should advise President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently reconstitute the NDDC board of directors.”
The 82-page report presented to the media by Dr. Olubunmi Afinowi, Faculty of Law of the University of Lagos, noted that the communities in the Niger Delta remain the poorest in the country despite that the wealth of the nation is derived from the area.
Afinowi, while presenting the report, lamented that the region remains “deeply in the grips of squalor, poverty, and environmental degradation.
“Corruption contributes to poverty and consequential suffering of many people in the Niger Delta. The right of the people to a clean, safe and healthy environment is routinely violated and abused by the government and oil companies.”
According to the report, “extensive social, economic, and environmental degeneration has largely affected the lifestyles and wellbeing of the people of the Niger Delta and apparent continued disregard and abuse of the human rights of the people of the region.”
The report stated that while the oil and gas upstream operations span the entire Niger Delta region, the empirical study in this research focuses on the Delta, Bayelsa, and Rivers states.
It identified corruption as a major factor in the continued degradation in the region. There is a lack of an effective governance and feedback framework to foster interactions between regulators, companies, and communities adding, “this implies a lack of transparency and accountability from the companies and the government to the people.”
It blamed the development on the failure of relevant monitoring agencies to effectively carry out their duties and functions adding that this has led to a continued disregard for the rights of the people and the need to protect the environment.
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The report further stated: “The oil and gas companies receive minimal government monitoring in the conduct of their activities; more troubling is the prevalence of oil theft and illegal mining, and refining of crude oil.
“Such illegal activities make the region crime prone and increase the vulnerability of the inhabitants of the communities.
“The communities are continually exposed to food insecurity and health risks. Most of their communal lands, land and water resources have been lost or continually threatened by degradation and pollution.
“A lot of information about the oil and gas companies, their activities, environmental audits and other relevant information are not available to the public. Such information is often shrouded in secrecy, and where made available, is limited, unclear and provides little or no actual information.’’
“Marginalization of women, the aged, the youths and other vulnerable members of the communities, such as persons with disabilities is rife. This marginalization also has far-reaching implications for the protection of the socio-economic rights of the inhabitants of the communities.”
The report urged President Muhammadu Buhari to publicly recognize and re-affirm that every Nigerian citizen, including oil producing communities, is entitled to economic and social rights, and take steps to ensure constitutional recognition of these rights as legally enforceable human rights.
“President Muhammadu Buhari should immediately instruct the Ministry of Niger Delta Humanitarian Affairs and other government agencies overseeing the NDDC to immediately publish the forensic report on NDDC conducted in 2021.
“The leadership of the National Assembly should ensure that the relevant committees collaborate to initiate independent public enquiries and fact-finding on how public funds have been spent by MDAs to mitigate the socio-economic impact of environmental pollution in oil producing communities.”
The report urged the leadership of the National Assembly to also make public the findings of any such investigations by the relevant parliamentary committees on the use of public funds by MDAs to mitigate the socio-economic impact of environmental pollution in oil producing communities.
“The leadership of the National Assembly should make public all reports of previous investigations into allegations of corruption in relevant MDAs concerned with the management of issues relating to the impact of environmental pollution in oil producing communities and send such reports to anti-corruption agencies”, it added.