Gov Diri seeks collaboration of Niger Delta governors on cleaner region

Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja

The Governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri, has made a case for a joint action among governors of the Niger Delta in order to attain a cleaner environment in the region.

This was even as Diri called on the people of the Niger Delta region not to contribute to environmental genocide in their localities.

Diri further urged the people of the region to shun illegal refining of crude and embrace intellectual approach in the agitation for the clean-up of the region.

Speaking during an online global conference tagged ‘The Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on the Aquatic Flora and Fauna of the Niger Delta’ to mark the 2020 World Environment Day, Diri frowned at the decades-long environmental injustice in the region.

Diri who was represented by his deputy, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, added that the state of affairs in the region had been exacerbated by the unfair derivation sharing formula.

Diri further said for a region that had continued to be degraded from activities of multinational oil companies, the Niger Delta people have been shortchanged from the proceeds of its rich and vast resources not only by the federal government, but also the oil firms.

“When other countries were recording reduction in oil activities, green house emission, pollution and gas flaring, the reverse was the case in Bayelsa State as it recorded death of lots of fishes during this coronavirus period in Akassa, Koluama, Agge, as well as in other states in the region,” Diri said.

Diri however said his administration will take on the issues of the environment as they were important to the development of the state.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the conference and the Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom, King Bubaraye Dakolo, Agada IV, said that going by research, 100 million barrels of crude oil and about 20 trillion standard cubic feet of gas were being released into the aquatic environment of the Niger Delta.

Dakolo urged governors of the region to do more than engage in rhetoric on matters of environment, even as he said the governments should frontally drive all genuine efforts for the restoration and restitution of the region’s flora and fauna.

Delivering a lecture on the theme of the conference, a senior lecturer with the Niger Delta University, Dr Pereowei Subai, highlighted the implications of the theme on the environment.

Subai also noted that the wealth of the region should not be confined to oil alone, saying that there should also be investment in agriculture and aquaculture.