By Jimitota Onoyume & Davies Iheamnachor

GOVERNOR Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has described the Ogoni clean up exercise as a political project, lamenting that over one year after it was flagged off nothing serious had taken off in Ogoni

Gov. Wike

The governor spoke yesterday when he played host to the Senate committee on Environment at Government House, Port Harcourt, saying that barely few months after a commission was set up in North East, the sum of  one billion dollars was released by the Federal government for its take off.

It will be recalled that at an elaborate ceremony in June last year the federal government flagged off implementation of the United Nations recommendation on the clean up of Ogoni.

Governor Wike who sounded displeased with the slow pace of implementing the exercise said so far the clean up was becoming a political campaign without serious effort on the part of the government to drive the process.

The governor said Ogoni and people of the Niger Delta region were getting tired with the endless excuses on why the clean-up had not taken off effectively. “The Federal Government is not serious about the clean up of Ogoniland. We are tired of telling our people that the project will start next year. Let it not be a political project. Look at the North East, a commission was established and $1Billion released.”

The Senate Committee on Environment, which also visited oil impacted sites in Ogoni as part of its oversight functions, promised that the committee would monitor the remediation process to its logical end.

The committee also promised that on resumption of plenary, the Senate would commence scrutiny of the 2018 budget to ensure that what is appropriated for the project would be sufficient.

The committee, led by its chairman, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu, visited contaminated sites where the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, is carrying out demonstration at Nsisioken Ogale, Eleme Local Government Area and B-Dere in Gokana Local Government Area.

Speaking, Tinubu lauded the Federal Government for including the multi-million naira project in the 2018 appropriation bill, adding that the Senate committee would ensure the success of the project.