Sheriff Mulade, an environmental rights activist from the Niger Delta has asked stakeholders in the region, particularly those in the oil and natural gas bearing communities, to not compromise in their campaign against oil pollution in the host communities by accepting tokens of oil companies that do not follow environmental best practices.
He said that compromise from those who believe they should fight for the best interests of their communities is one of the biggest challenges in promoting growth.
Mulade encouraged leaders to work at all costs for the economic growth of their people.
Mulade, the Centre for Peace and Environmental Justice National Coordinator, gave the advice in Monday’s New Year message available to Warri journalists.
He urged Niger Delta residents, especially leaders of oil and gaz host communities, to save the environment from further destruction in 2022.
Mulade advised Bayelsa State stakeholders to insist on the need for oil companies to address the problems of pollution, in order to restore the Niger Delta region’s degraded environment and to protect it for future generations.
It is worth noting that the Nigeria Upstream Regulatory Commission, the National Oil Spill Detection and Responses Agency and other environmental regulatory bodies now appear to be tools for multinational oil and gas exporting firms in Nigeria. They have commodified and taken biased actions against the local population when it comes to the need to objectively dispensing oil spill matter matters. The locals have nothing to offer the government officials, he said.
He expressed concern about the possibility that the economic damage caused by oil spillage in the region might not be fully recovered within the next 30 years.
Mulade therefore urged the Federal Government and other stakeholders, to press the oil multinationals to take urgent steps to reverse the degradation of the Niger Delta environment, so that the region’s fauna and flora are protected.
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