Ogoni Environmental Protection Agency (OGEPA) has decided to use the Ogoni Freedom Remembrance Month of May 2012 to launch the first ever Environmental Spring-Time Resistance.
In a press statement signed by Tambari Deekor, MOSOP Media Associate Editor, OGEPA Administrator, John Larwisa, who is also Group 17 of Secretary of South-South Amnesty International in Nigeria, said his agency has embraced the 2012 Earth Day Call made by President of Partnership for Indigenous Peoples Environment (PIPE), Dr. Goodluck Diigbo, for a nonviolent resistance to hold those who derive direct economic benefits from the earth accountable.
PIPE is an international NGO operating in special consultative status with Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.
Larwisa commended the leadership of Diigbo who is also the MOSOP President/Spokesman and declared that Ogoni people at home have reaffirmed their unshakeable commitment to demonstrate a sense of ownership of their land.
According to the release, this year’s resistance will include the beautification of cities, towns and villages devastated through many years of oil exploration by NNPC, Royal Dutch/Shell and Chevron, among others.
The Spring Time Resolution was reached on April 22, 2012, at Bane, the home town of the murdered environmentalist and late President of MOSOP, Ken Saro-Wiwa, during a meeting of members of the Ogoni Environmental Protection Agency.
Larwisa stated that Ogoni people have what it takes to extricate themselves from the quagmire that decades of oil exploration has plunged them into.
He said Ogoni people would neither wait for UNEP’s 30 years nor the Federal governmentof Nigeria’s stubborn resistance to embrace multi-stakeholders’ called for by MOSOP.
He said there was still a window of opportunity for the stakeholders to meet to review and authenticate the UNEP Draft Report in line with UNEP’s Due Process for Environmental Impact Assessment Study.
Larwisa added that time has come for Ogonis to demonstrate to the world “how we were able to sustain our land, people and environment before the advent the petroleum industry came for occupation.”
He concluded by saying, “every time a tree is planted, reminds us of the start of the struggle of the Ogoni people.”
He solicited the adherence to the ideals of nonviolence, for which the Ogoni struggle is synonymous and enjoined all and sundry to start from their backyard to make their surrounding habitable.
In a vote of thanks on behalf of other attendees, a member of the board of OGEPA, Chief Brownson Tebira, thanked the administrator for bringing the message of hope to the people and assured that henceforth, Ogoni would witness periodic tree-planting.
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