By Obiabin Onukwugha
As reactions continue to pour out on the demise of former Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at a London hospital on Sunday, an environmental activist, Dr. Fyneface Dumaneme has called on President Bola Tinubu to sustain the legacies left behind by his late predecessor in the Niger Delta region.
Fyneface, who is the executive director, Youths and Environment Advocacy Centre, YEAC-NIGERIA, made the call while reacting to the death of the former president.
Fyneface, who spoke with NatureNews on Sunday, recalled that the ongoing Ogoni cleanup was formally commenced by Buhari, years after the UNEP report. He said: “I remember the efforts made by former President Bihari to ensure the commencement and achievements of the Ogoni clean up project after it was abandoned by the Jonathan administration under whose government the report was released on August 4, 2011.
“President Buhari on the assumption of office restructured the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) from Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project. He also structured HYPREP and established the Board of Trustees, Governing Council and the Project Secretariat headed by the Project Coordinator. He then flagged off the Ogoni clean in June 2016 and set the pace for what we have ongoing today as inherited and continued by President Bola Tinubu. It was also under the late Buhari administration that almost all of the funds being used to carry out the Ogoni clean-up project until date were released through the joint venture partners under the ‘polluter pay’ principles.
“Also, in the Nigeri Delta region, President Buhari also pushed to end pipeline vandalism, crude oil theft and artisanal refineries in 2017 by initiating the process of issuing special modular refinery licences for artisanal refiners in the Niger Delta.
“Furthermore, he adopted the Presidential Artisanal Crude Oil Refining Development Initiative (PACORDI) aimed at the modernization, legalization and integration of artisanal refineries into the national economy developed by the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria) through its Executive Director, Dr Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface on July 27, 2020 and presented to the federal government such that he organised a national summit for the integration of modular and artisanal refineries into the national economy in 2021 and 2022.”
The YEAC-NIGERIA executive director also recalled that the pipeline surveillance aimed at curbing oil theft in the Niger Delta region was initiated by the administration of the late president. “The private pipeline surveillance contract that is ongoing in the Niger Delta region today to protect the pipelines beyond the efforts of conventional security was also initiated by late president Buhari.
“Generally speaking, Buhari tried his best not on the Ogoni but other parts of the Niger Delta during his presidency even if his efforts didn’t solve as many problems as expected like the inability of his government to actualise licences for illegal refineries and establishment of the Presidential Artisanal Crude Oil Refining Initiative (PACORDI) like he did for illegal gold miners in the North and Western Nigeria through the establishment of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative (PAGMI),” he said.
While expressig shock at the death of the former president, Fyneface recalled the efforts of Buhari in solving Nigeria’s climate change issues through the signing of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2016.
“Passing on just about 26 months after leaving office as the president of Nigeria on May 29, 2023, his memory and works to the Nigerian people and nation-building, even if many won’t appreciate them as well as other challenging parts of the policies and programmes of his government that also inflicted pains on Nigerians, remain fresh in our memories.
“I recall my memorable interactions with him during the 71st United Nations General Assembly in New York, in 2016, where he signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. We shared a platform then at a Nigeria Climate Change Side Event at #UNGA in New York, USA organised by the then Minister of Environment and current Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Muhammed where I was invited by the Federal Government as an Ogoni/Niger Delta Environmental Justice Activist and Youth Representative to speak, calling for the implementation of the UNEP Report on Ogoni following the UNEP Report 2011 and other youths issues in the Niger Delta and Nigeria.
“I sympathise with his immediate family as well as his political family, the federal government, all mourning Nigerians, the federal Republic of Nigeria and President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu on this irreplaceable loss of our former president. My sincere condolences to the family and may his soul rest on!
“Advocacy Centre thus called on President Tinubu to sustain the legacies of late President Buhari in the Niger Delta by not only sustaining his policies and programmes but improving on them,” Fyneface stated.
