Crisis looms in Ogoni as youths demand HYPREP coordinator’s sack, want probe of $360m cleanup fund

By DANIEL ABIA, Port Harcourt

Except an urgent step is taken, there may be another round of crisis in Ogoni, Rivers State as a concerned youth group under the aegis of Ogoni Development Drive (ODD) has called on President Muhammdu Buhari to sack the Acting Project Coordinator of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Programme (HYPREP), Professor Philip Shekwolo.

The group said the call for Shekwelo’s sack became necessary because of what they described as ‘injustice’, noting that “Ogonis did not die for a Kogi man to come and head their affairs.”

The youth group, the weekend at a media briefing in Bori, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, called on President Buhari to replace Shekwolo with a qualified Ogoni son to head HYPREP, stressing that Ogoni has a good number of people academically qualified to head the agency.

No compatible source was found for this media.
A statement signed by Solomon Lenu, leader of the group stated that as an ethnic group that wears the shoe of deprivation, they know where it pinches them.

Lenu argued that Shikwelo lack the moral ground to overseas a remediation programme which he had in the past defended Shell that there was no oil spill in Ogoniland.

He demanded the Federal Government urgently investigate how the cleanup money collected by HYPREP has been spent.

Lenu, however, disclosed the group’s readiness to sacrifice everything legally and otherwise available to them to stop Shekwolo from becoming a substantive Project Coordinator of HYPREP.

“I am sadder today because the present Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Professor Phillip Shekwolo, a former staff of Shell, the company at the epicentre of the oil crisis in Ogoni land, was made an acting PC to correct the wrongs generated by Dekil, his predecessors but he (Shekwolo) had since deviated to fest his nest on the common patrimony of the dying Ogoni people.

“It will interest you to know that since his appointment in an acting capacity, rather than focusing on what would bring a solution to the myriad of problems confronting Ogonis, Prof. Shekwolo only devotes his stay in HYPREP to bribe people to support his confirmation as the HYPREP substantive PC.

“On this note, we call on President Muhammadu Buhari to remove Prof. Phillip Shekwolo as the PC of HYPREP and replace him with a qualified Ogoni son. Because we have a good number of Ogonis who are academically qualified with decades of field experience to head that agency. It is also important to state that, he who wears the shoes knows where it pinches. We know our problems and we know how to go about it but Phillip Shekwolo does not.

“We want the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency investigate how the cleanup money so far collected by HYPREP has been spent. This is imperative because the so-called cleanup is all about a political gimmick controlled and influenced by politicians from within and without Ogoni.

“Ogoni Youths and elders say capital NO to Philip Shekwolo as substantive HYPREP coordinator.
“Philip Shekwolo is a Shell surrogate who in the past defended Shell that there was no oil spill in Ogoniland, that if there was any, it was the Orchestration of Ogonis themselves to blackmail Shell.

“Ogonis did not die for a Kogi man to come and head HYPREP for us when no non-indigene has ever headed the North-East development commission. So HYPREP and Ogoni Trust fund will not be the first.

“We are equally ready to sacrifice everything legally and otherwise available to us to ensure we stop this sacrilegious appetite of Shikwelo,” Lenu said in the statement. (Saturday Independent)