An Environmental Rights Activist Celestine Akpoobari says the Ogoni people will soon experience a brand new water scheme and other economic development programmes under the new budget of HYPREP in the process of the UNEP clean up.
Celestine Akpoobari said this while speaking to women at a Week long Exchange, Learning and Solidarity Visit by Women Activists and Environmental Justice Campaigners from Botswana, and Siera Leone organized by the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center in collaboration with WOMIN African Alliance, in Port Harcourt.
” The budget been considered will include brand new water scheme for about 24 communities. The center for excellence the Ogoni people are yearning for all these years is back on the budget. There will be a pilot for the revegetation of the lost mangrove forests, and other things our people have asked for are being considered in the new budget. So any moment from now the final approval will be made by the agency, the project will run with it. This will boost the economy in the area and restore aquatic lives”, Akpoobari said.
The Environmental Rights Campaigner Celestine Akpoobari called on the Women Activists to learn from the Ogoni experience, and always speak out when they been cheated by multinationals operating in their communities.
On her part, founder and Executive Director of the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Center Emem Okon said the purpose of the Solidarity Visit by the foreign Women Activists is to see how women are are organizing around environmental challenges in the Niger Delta.
“This visiting groups are also from Mineral Extraction Countries.Bostwana has discovered oil in commercial quantities, but they have not started extraction in their country. So they came to share the experience of Nigeria: how can they overcome and prevent some of the problems and challenges that oil has generated for communities in the Niger Delta. So we have visited some oil impacted communities, so these visitors can learn how to move forward, building solidarity among the women groups in this country. And most especially take home some lessons to organize themselves to prevent some of the mistakes that was made here in Nigeria”, Emem explained.
On their part, some of the visitors from Sierra Leone, and Botswana told our correspondent Precious Ahiakwo-Ovie that women have been marginalized in the Niger Delta region.
Augusta Nuwomah from Sierra Leone said women are not given the opportunity to speak out against the injustices meted on them. ” Speaking out is a step towards freedom. Women are still not given the opportunity to speak up or to be involved in governance issues especially things pertaining communities where oil spillages are occuring”, she said.
Anita Lekuwhua said ” it is heartbreaking to listen to these women here telling their stories, these are the lessons I’m taking home to our government to ensure they use a safer method to extract oil so it doesn’t become a curse to us”,
