BY EGUFE YAFUGBORHI

WARRI — To ensure environmental justice in Nigeria, the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, has called for the establishment of an “Independent National Environmental Tribunal” for speedy resolution of environmental disputes in the country.

Executive Director, ERA/FoEN, Dr. Godwin Ojo, made the call, yesterday in Warri, Delta State, at a two-day workshop to empower civil society groups and communities to achieve justice over incidents of environmental disasters in their environments.

Blaming the rampant gas flaring and frequent oil spills in the operating environment on impunity by oil companies as well as ignorance and sometimes connivance on the part of oil host communities, Ojo stressed that the Nigerian judiciary also shares the blame as most of the cases, even when dragged to court, are hardly resolved conclusively with the impacted communities hardly gaining justice.

He said: “That is why you notice that in recent times, impacted communities with the support of ERA and other civil society groups now explore the option of foreign courts. You remember the case of five fishermen from Bayelsa State versus Shell in Netherlands. One of the plaintiffs won against Shell in Hague.”

He said that the regular courts had failed in playing their role of discouraging the destructive spills because of the delayed justice system as well as the challenges of pervasive corruption in the country for which the judiciary is no exception.

The ERA boss proposed an “independent National Environmental Tribunal, specifically tailored to concentrate on environmental disputes to resolve all pending cases with dispatch as justice delayed is justice denied.

“There are about 10,000 oil spill sites in the operating environment and not one spill has been adequately cleaned up. This has resulted in severe degradation of farmlands and pollution of water bodies which the people depend on for sustenance and livelihood.”