Council of Ogoni Churches Appeals to Buhari for Peace

NIGERIA: Churches in Ogoniland are being briefed today on the Ogoni UNEP Report Fast Track Orders issued for implementation by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Leaders of the Council of Ogoni Churches, want President Buhari to pull back his Orders, to douse tension in Ogoniland. The Church council President, Reverend, Sir Mike Ibirah said he should act for the sake of peace, because damage to peace, would far exceed the cost of damage to a wrong policy.

[ Image ] Protesters at Police Area Command, Bori

In a message to the council in Bori, President of Ogoni Central Indigenous Authority, Dr. Goodluck Diigbo said he still thinks that President Muhammadu Buhari may have a good intention. “However, the president would have to confront the fact that his Orders, one which may have been closest to his heart, continues to pulse bad blood. The reason being that those who inspired him, didn’t properly examine the UNEP process,” he said.

[ Image ] Another crowd of protesters on Bori Main Road

“Even though disputed, when the UNEP Report was first released in August 4, 2011, it didn’t aggravate the Ogoni situation, the way “Buhari’s genuine intention” has done,” Diigbo said.

“Some people have called me. They smiled. They laughed about it, as if the fast track announcement came from the gods. While they mock, our land is rising in tension. This is regrettable,” Diigbo said.

President Buhari can act now, rethink the process; realizing that the government he heads, is part of the problem – a culprit in the Ogoni environmental tragedy,” he noted.

“What will need now is not another General Sani Abacha era; the Ogoni people need peace and security, not aggravation,” Diigbo said. Protests have been held, including at the Area Command of the Nigeria Police in Bori, Ogoni Cultural and Political Capital.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on Wednesday, August 5, 2015 approved several actions to fast-track the long delayed implementation of the United Nations Environmental Programme Report on the environmental restoration of Ogoniland.

He had said the actions approved were based on recommendations to him by the Executive Director of UNEP, the UNEP Special Representative for Ogoniland,permanentsecretaries of the Federal Ministries of Environment and Petroleum Resources, and others, include the amendment of the official gazette establishing the Hydrocarbon.

Now, Diigbo wants the Buhari administration to show proof by publishing the recommendations and names of the signatories.

He said the fast-track actions by the president are out of steps with UNEP Report, and insists on genuine Joint Stakeholders’ Review as a priority. Although, he welcomes Buhari’s intention to fast-track the implementation of UNEP Ogoniland Report, Diigbo, said his fast-track actions ignore the very report’s technical demands.

SIGNED: Hon. Dum Ade John Budam
For OCIA President
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