ERA faults govt’s deadline on
bitumen exploration
By Charles Okonji
Senior Business Correspondent, Lagos
Environmental Rights Action (ERA), anon-governmental
organisation, has faulted the Federal Government over the deadline given to two
local companies for the commencement of bitumen exploitation, stating that the
government should, first of all, resolve the issues of adherence to locally and
internationally acceptable environmental practices for the exploitation.
ERA stated that it would be too hasty for the
companies to begin exploitation of the mineral resource, as ordered by the
Federal Government, stressing that the immediate exploitation of bitumen
without the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) would lead to the replication
of the Niger Delta crisis in the bitumen bearing belt.
The Programme Director of ERA, Mr. Godwin Uyi Ojo,
said that the government, by ordering the companies to start exploitation of
bitumen without EIA, “wants to sacrifice environmental standards, as well
as genuine concerns of local communities, in another reckless adventure for
revenue.”
Ojo added: “It is unimaginable that a
government can give deadline on a project like bitumen exploitation without the
mandatory environmental impact assessment and without adequate consultation
with local communities whose environment and socio-economic lives are to be
impacted upon.”
Bitumen deposits have been discovered in 120
kilometres coastal belts of Ogun, Ondo and Edo states. Official estimates put
the deposit at about 42.74 billion metric tones.
The Federal Government had licensed two
companies-Bitumen Exploration and Exploitation Company (Nigeria) Limited
(EECON) and Nissands (Nigeria) Limited, to begin exploration in the coastal
belts of Ondo State.
Last Monday, the government issued a December, this
year’s deadline to the firms to mobilise to the site and begin
exploitation or lose their licences.
ERA, however, warned that bitumen exploitation exerts
enormous impact on the environment, making strict compliance to environmental
regulations imperative, and expressed deep worry over the total neglect of the
local communities’ interest in the design and implementation of the
bitumen exploitation agenda.
Ojo said: “Nigerians have nothing to show for
the huge wealth the government has made from oil. The people of the Niger Delta
are worse-off, as they have their environment and livelihoods jeopardised.
“We urge this government to abandon this crash
programme to bitumen exploitation and collaborate with the host communities to
develop a blueprint to manage the vast bitumen resource without creating
another environmentally degraded, poverty-endemic and crises prone zone, such
as has become the lot of the Niger Delta,” he added.
The environmental group suggested steps to a
crisis-free bitumen exploitation in the country, which include active
participation of the local communities, a comprehensive and all-embracing EIA
and equitable and democratic revenue-sharing arrangement based on local control
of local resources.
Others are public disclosure of agreements signed
between the government and the bitumen firms, abrogation of all unjust mining
laws and constitution of a people-driven Bitumen Development Agency (BDA) to
cater for the development needs of local communities in the bitumen belt.
