You may have issues on jobs done before him. He is a human rights activist and was in the trenches campaigning for the implementation of UNEP report on Ogoni. I know the efforts he has put in selflessly to ensure that this project goes forward.

No contractor will do any shabby job under his watch. If there are complaints, HYPREP will be compelled to do something, either to call back the contractor or re-award the contract to ensure the place is properly cleaned for people to go back to their fishing and farming business. Having served as a member of the governing council of HYPREP, how much has so far been released from the Trust Fund for the clean up project?

I was at the governing council and we don’t deal with financial matters. It’st he Board of Trustees (BOT) that keeps and releases the money. It’s the board of trustees or the office of the project coordinator, the management of HYPREP that can tell the actual amount that has been released to them.

The BOT doesn’t report to us, they report to the Minister of Environment. However, that information should be on their website, because we are in the information age where things should be transparent and open, because it’s public funds. You shouldn’t have to ask, it’s something you can get on their websiteeasily, unless they are trying to hide something.

I check and it’s not available on their website… If it’s not there, there is something wrong, it should be made open because this is a public project. As an environmentalist with experience on the subject matter, do you think that the funds for the project have been properly utilised? Well, like I said, under this present Project Coordinator and the former Minister, Amina Muhammed, before she left for the UN and the man that took over from her, Alhaji Jibril Ibrahim, the current Emir of Nassarawa, I can vouch for those two and the present Minister but the other ones, I cannot vouch for them.

I can say that whatever money Amina,Jibril Ibrahim spent and what this current minister is spending, I can say we will get value for it, because they are not jokers and they are not after their stomach or the money. What is the percentage of work done so far in the Ogoni clean up project? They have done the simple risk sites, medium risk sites, what they’re yet to award is the complex sites.

Tthe complex sites, I’m told some companies from Australia were in Ogoni to carry out ‘characterization’ which they need to do to be able to know the level of pollution before they award the contract. That kind of contract won’t be for any local contractor, it will be a major international leanup company. They have awarded the shorelines, they are planting mangroves,and they said they’ll give about sixty communities water.

The plan is that every community in Ogoni should have portable water. For the Ogoni power project, they don’t manufacture the parts and keep, you go to the companies in China, ndia and Turkey and they manufacture and they bring them. Some containers, over 20 have come.

The centre of excellence in Bori is over 90 per cent complete, the hospital is over 90 per cent, so all that are ongoing. We await the award of the contract for the complex sites now, after they get results from the characterization they did. What’s the time frame for the cleanup project?

UNEP said I’ll take 25 to 30 years. The cleanup is in its 11th year now. How many communities are they cleaning up? That I wouldn’t know offhand, but they aren’t cleaning up every community.

They’re only cleaning up polluted sites, and not every polluted site was captured byUNEP; also there are new polluted sites that are happening daily in Ogoni. Oil spills are everywhere, so new polluted sites are coming up, and the areas that weren’t captured by UNEP, HYPREP will take care of. There are talks about resumption of oil exploration in Ogoni, what’s your take?

There’ll be no oil resumption in Ogoni and that is the truth, if they like, let them bring the whole army in this world. Infact, I’m told the president has asked the National Security Adviser to be in charge, and the last time I checked, the National Security Adviser was not a Petroleum Minister, so why is the National Security Adviser taking charge, do they want to occupy Ogoni again, do the want to kill us again, we are waiting. The right thing must be done, what happened in Ogoni wasn’t a suicide mission but an ongoing struggle, those that died were not chicken or goats, they were human beings, there is blood in the oil in Ogoni, that blood must be rem