On the back of the recent launch of the clean-up of Ogoniland by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the Minister of Environment, Hajia Amina Mohammed, says there is a collaborative effort to get the entire Niger-Delta area cleaned up. But she warns in this interview with BISI OLANIYI against any form of mismanagement of the resources meant for the projects. She also speaks about her upbringing, her world view and government’s plan to clean up the environment on a national scale.
Why did it take President Muhammadu Buhari more than one year to flag off the clean-up of Ogoniland recommended by UNEP?
It is important to look at the background. First, it was a campaign promise he made before coming into office. You know that it took some time before the cabinet was actually put in place. Even at that, there were various processes to look at what had happened before and where we had stopped so we could know where to continue from. It is important that one looks at what had happened in the past. So, you learn lessons on what not to do in the future and plan for success.
We (ministers) came into office in November (2015) and very quickly attended the climate change conference that lasted two weeks. So, at the end of that conference, coming back in December, one of the first things we did was to come straight to Ogoniland to see what this is about, because it was one of Mr. President’s campaign promises.
A lot has happened since then, including reaching out to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which carried out the environmental assessment of Ogoniland, issued its report on August 4, 2011 and received by the then President Goodluck Jonathan on August 12, 2011. UNEP was asked to come and review its report, looking at the processes that had taken place in the last government and then actually visiting the area to see what in fact needed to be done.
This year has been all about getting the stakeholders back on board. There has been a lot of mistrust and we have been making this promise for decades. This government is about going to where the problem is, not everybody trooping to Abuja to make their complaints. So, we have spent a lot of time here (in Rivers State) engaging the people, knowing their expectations, what went wrong in the past and how to get people back on board, among others. This is not a prescription by the Federal Government. It is a collaborative effort to try to get the Niger Delta cleaned, and to start from Ogoni land.
There were many issues that came up. This is why it has taken a long time. We were planning to succeed, and that takes time. We went as fast as we could. We hope that in the next few days, we will begin to deliver on our promise.
Of all the major polluted sites in Ogoni land, the fish pond of Numuu Tekuru, Bodo in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State was chosen as the spot for the kick-off of Ogoni clean-up. Won’t President Buhari be accused of getting back to where he inaugurated the fish pond as Head of State in 1984, rather than going to another site?
We did not choose the site because the President inaugurated another project there so many years ago. It is a coincidence that we found out when we went to look at two, three sites. It is actually the best site. It shows the creeks, the damage done to the mangrove and to the waterways. It shows how a source of livelihood has been killed off by the oil pollution. It also was accessible. You have to look at all sorts of factors, when you are choosing a site.
So, I do not think that the premise of choosing a site was the person going there before, but I do believe that the coincidence has served us well, because it does show you that some years ago when things were so prosperous, we could commission livelihood from fish farming. The difference is clear. The opportunity has come once again for us to right the wrongs of the past and make it clear that the investments in the Niger Delta, starting with Ogoniland, should restore the ecosystem to what it should be.
Besides restoring the Ogoni environment, what else would an ordinary Ogoni man benefit from the clean-up?
Firstly, it is a very big benefit to know that you now drink and eat and breathe cleaner than you were in the past. Things that you and I take for granted are not things that can be taken for granted in Ogoniland. The second thing is that once we keep the Niger Delta and Ogoniland cleaned, it is about giving alternatives to what has happened now and giving a future to young people, especially women and young men.
So, we will be looking at the livelihoods. We will be looking at that whole scenario where we talk about the diversification of the economy beyond oil.
What would we gain by doing that?
There is so much to be done. We can have industrial parks. We can look at fishing. We can look at so many other parts of the ecosystem that can profit not just everyone in the country because revenue goes into one pot, but actually profits the lives of people in there.
What definite programmes have been planned for the post clean-up period?
The first set of programmes is to actually look at the emergency response, because in many of these polluted areas, people cannot drink the water. The ground they till for agriculture is poisoned. The toxicity in water and plant and the food we eat, that is the first thing that we will have to deal with. Where people are living, we will remove the toxic substances and then deal with the water issue. So, these are some of the first things that will happen.
The second is really providing a baseline to understand where we should start. This is a programme that is going to take 20 to 25 years. So, you just can’t land in one part of the creek and say you are starting to clean. You have to clean where there would be a definite return to livelihood. So, if you look at the demonstration site, we thought we could deal with the fish ponds that are dead. We said if we revive that, then we have revived fishing opportunity for young people.
The other immediate programme is that we want a centre of excellence. The UNEP report promised a centre of excellence and a laboratory. So, we will be looking to where we position the child, the centre of excellence and where we position the soil laboratory so that we will begin to do some of the technical works of how to make it sustainable in Bodo. We can clean up what is already there, but in future as some of these accidents happen, some of the third-party oil spills that we are seeing, we can deal with them.
The third is that a lot of training has to be done. We want people in the Niger Delta to benefit from the clean-up and the clean-up will happen in different ways in different places; water and soil, among others. So, the training programme for young people will take place, giving them skill sets that they can benefit from the contractors that come to clean up the Niger Delta.
UNEP recommended initial fund of $1 billion for capacity building, skill transfer and conflict resolution in Ogoni. Where is the money?
The $1 billion is a commitment that the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) has made to provide. So, it is with SPDC. What we have done now is to set up governance structures, so that we first of all agree on the kinds of programme that will take place. And there is a Board of Trustees (BoT) that will make sure that the resources for Ogoniland are used for the recommendations the UNEP report had done openly and transparently.
We hope that we will have funds manager to take care of the money, because $1 billion is not going to be enough. When we get the $1 billion, we need to start the job. But we also need to use that to leverage on the funding from the budget, from other donors and from other opportunities around.
The structure of the council also includes key stakeholders, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), among others. These are key stakeholders in the Niger Delta that are already investing and spending money. So, we want better coordination and coherence, and not duplicating but actually adding value to one another’s investments.
Re-pollution or secondary pollution may be a bigger issue than the current pollution in Ogoniland and other parts of the Niger Delta, especially with breaking of more pipelines. Have you taken that possibility into your plan?
It is a very real concern. First, oil companies have to do better. When we go to the sites where it is an oil spill as a result of their (oil firms’) faults, then you know you can really talk about the remedial work that needs to be done, to make sure there are no seepages from where the oil spill has come. You can contain that.
What you cannot contain so easily is where you have young people coming back to start breaking pipelines or having illegal refineries. That is why you have to do things in collaboration with the communities. Communities have to take responsibility. This is a collective responsibility. Do we want to clean this up, so that it is in the interest of the person in Ogoni land first? Cleaning up the Niger Delta is first the responsibility for the people in the Niger Delta. They need to take that responsibility. If they (Niger Deltans) continue to pollute their own communities, there is not much the government can do about it. You will just stop the work. It is very clear to us that there is rule of law here. There will not be any criminality that will be accepted.
Once the people of the communities decide that they want the clean-up, we will make the investment. People of the communities and government have to try to protect the Niger Delta environment to prevent re-pollution. We have to convince young people that this is not the best way to go. If it happens, then you have to stop work, because you cannot be throwing good money into a bad investment.
There has to be an understanding, because that just cannot continue. It is a sorry situation that we have found ourselves in. If we really look at the pollution in the Niger Delta today, over 60 per cent of it is third party. While we are addressing what oil companies did in Ogoniland, we really have to think about tomorrow. So, we have started in Ogoni land, but we know that the wider Niger Delta has very different kinds of reasons for pollution, and we have to deal with that. I think together with our colleagues in Amnesty office, in NDDC and the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, we have to work together to change the mindsets of people who believe that there is some future in polluting their communities.
How will your ministry address gas flaring issue in the Niger Delta?
When Nigerians signed on to the declaration that was made in Paris on Climate Change agreement, there were a number of decisions we took there, including an end to gas flaring by 2020 and a number of other objectives such as emissions. The more emission you have from different places, the more you warm the globe and cause a rise in sea levels. So, there are issues we have to take on and string them together, to say that gas flaring is damaging our environment and houses. No matter what the world is saying, emissions matter to us first.
Many things were involved in stopping us, such as policy decisions and regulations in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. We have also joined the World Bank coalition on ending gas flaring. There is a roadmap on how to do that, not just say it. We have got concrete steps to it. Next week, we will join a breakfast meeting with fellow ministers, because this is collaboration. We have Ministries of Petroleum Resources, Transportation, Power and Agriculture. This is because we cannot do a lot without agriculture, because of the agric chain. It is not just cleaning. If you clean, staying clean brings a lot of other responsibilities.
What parameters has your ministry set to measure the milestones in the clean-up exercise?
One of the things we observed when we came in was absence of any clear framework for monitoring and evaluation. It is not good for government to set the measurement alone. There must be independent measurement frameworks because government is always measuring its successes. We have to have independent feedbacks. What we are proposing is involving civil society and experts in framing those measurements and indicators to have the scorecard. That is one of the things the committee will have to design.
The tools we use to frame the indicators will not be designed by government, but by those outside, who will hold us to account when we say this is the target we are setting for the clean-up. To measure and say whether it has been done or not should come from the end users, those that are going to be impacted by it. There was no such mechanism in the former arrangement.
In day time, most Ogoni people will demand clean-up. But at night, they will ask for compensation. How will you handle that?
That is really an interesting perspective. It is not whether it is the Ogoni people or not. People that have been in a situation of the tragedy that we have seen in the Niger Delta, once they begin to lose trust in government, anybody that they see coming to bail them out, they develop all sorts of responses, usually survival instincts. They will want you to clean up, and they will like to benefit in a clean environment, in investments and jobs. But just in case that is not where you are going, they will want night-time discussion. So, it is truly hedging your back, because people do not have any trust in the system. To reverse that, it is going to take time. The first thing I want to say is there will be zero tolerance for sharing money. We are taking money meant for Ogoni people and investing it in clean-up and livelihoods thereafter. That is the first message that we have to put out there.
We have to follow it up with actions and we too do not have to join them at night doing deal. That happened in the past, it is not going to happen in the future. You surely will not find me doing deals at night. You may find me drinking pepper soup, because I am having a conversation to agree on some issues, but it will not be about sharing money. The oil companies have to help here, because it has been about compensation all these years. I think it has suited people to solve problems in the past by just saying you want to compensate. But money has not compensated for the toxicity and the lives of the people in the Niger Delta, and that has to stop. Compensation is when you pay people their dues. But that is not all. When I look at the way oil companies clean up after spill, it is not the gold standards for Nigeria. We want the gold standard, because that is what our people deserve.
The standards used in other parts of the world are better than what we get in Nigeria. We want human beings to get the gold standards in Nigeria. Oil companies have to be taken up on that.
The clean-up is a big project that may take long. How do you get all groups to support and participate, because the Ogoni issue should transcend politics?
Politics is warped now. It is supposed to be response to your people and their constituencies on their challenges. It has changed. We derailed. What politicians say they are doing for their people is far different from what they want today. We have to get back to the issues and reinforce the voice of the people over what they want and what their so-called representatives get for them. That is why in any place where there is true representation, you find stability and investments going there.
We also have to look at how governance is done at the local level and institutions that help them to function, not just in Abuja. It is going to take some time, but what we can hope to do is get back on track and lay a solid foundation in the next three years. After that, who we leave behind will determine if the people will find a system where people will demand a good thing, because we did a good thing.
If Amina Mohammed leaves and all this crumbles, it would have been failure. President Buhari has got integrity and experience and we have got experience. We are just pulling all of that together. We do not have all the answers, but if we put the matter on the table and we get the key stakeholders together, it will amaze you where the solutions will come from.
You have been talking as if you were trained for the clean-up of Ogoniland and other parts of the Niger Delta. Did President Buhari have you in mind for this kind of task, going by the depth of knowledge and sophistication you have brought to the table?
I do not believe anybody had any idea that he (President Buhari) was going to put me in the Ministry of Environment. I did not even know he was going to nominate me. It was a surprise. My career track has proved that. What I know is, whatever you throw at me in the civil service, I will embrace it, because I am a daughter of a civil servant. I was brought up in a family where integrity matters, name matters, performance matters; and you cannot walk past anyone where you see injustice. I am allergic to injustice. That does not work. It does not matter where it comes from. It is about humanity. Injustice is injustice, to man or to animal. That is the way I am. Wherever you find yourself, you must fight that fight, so far as it is about your humanity.
I do not believe that you can fight a fight without experiencing it, even if it is for 24 hours. To think you can prescribe solutions to Ogoni people’s problems from Abuja is absolute nonsense. You must come down to Ogoniland and feel what the people are going through. Once you experience that, you can go back and tell anybody anything, because you have the conviction. You do not have to refer to a book with figures you are not even sure of. So, when I say to people that it is unacceptable that a people should eat a type of food with the level of toxicity in it, it is because I have tasted it.
President Buhari has asked us to do a job. It is a privilege because millions of other Nigerians could do it perhaps better than the way I am doing it. So, I have to put in my best, knowing that I am answerable to the Almighty. So, I do the best that I can do and I leave the rest to God.
What is the Federal Government’s plan to adequately tackle pollution in Nigeria?
The overall plan is to tackle pollution anywhere in the country. That is my mandate as a minister. But we are mindful that the genesis is what happened in Ogoni where the struggle started and which is the target of the UNEP report. That is the first bus stop. The second bus stop is the nine oil producing states (Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Ondo, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Abia and Imo) and the third bus stop is the whole country. It is not about where the pollution is the largest or where oil was first discovered in commercial quantity. It is about the struggle and where it (the struggle) started and the promise Mr. President made.
What is your message for Ogoni people and other Niger Deltans?
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Specifically as we have a President that is delivering on a promise. This is a collective responsibility and we want to get the job done. It cannot be done by me alone or by Mr. President alone. All hands must be on deck.
Crude oil and gas pipelines are still being destroyed in the Niger Delta. How will you advise the youths who have returned to militancy after the 2009 Federal Government’s amnesty offer to repentant militants?
The criminal acts will not augur well for them and for the people. In the end, it will contribute to destruction. That is not a future for anyone. There are alternatives and there can be dialogue. There is nothing done by force anymore. The one thing that President Buhari has given us is an opportunity to do things right, and if you have the opportunity, grab it, because it may not come again.
