Spill clean up experts from the United Nations Agency for Environment (UNEP) contracted to handle the remediation exercise in Ogoniland are billed to arrive the country next week.
The team which is expected to arrive Nigeria October 28 will visit communities in Ogoniland where the spills occurred on October 30 but are expected to stay in Ogoniland until November 4 when they are expected to have concluded their sample taking exercises for laboratory analysis.
In a statement by Mr. Emma Okah, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Peter Odili, he said that they got the assurance from the head of the reconciliation team between the federal government, Shell Petroleum Development Corporation and Ogoni people, Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kuka.
Kukah was quoted as saying that the efforts was not political but aimed at ensuring a proper clean up of all oil spill sites across Ogoni land, adding that the search for the best technology in the world to handle the clean up accounted for the delay in take off of the exercise.
The mediator explained that the cost of the clean up exercise would be borne by Shell under the �Polluters Pay Principles (PPP) of the United Nations and charged Ogonis to provide adequate information to the experts when they arrive.
Two weeks back, Ogonis under the aegis of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) had asked the federal government to give the oil licenses in Ogoniland to another oil company, alleging the Shell had demonstrated bad faith in dealing with them.
MOSOP President, Mr. Ledum Mitee had alleged that Shell told lies by alleging that they were not given access to their sites by host communities, for which reason they were unable to put out a fire in one of their facilities for four months.
They had in a statement threatened to speak through violence if it was the only language understood by the federal government as their people had been thrown into darkness for more than four months while they lacked everything that makes life worth living in the area.
In his response to the situation, Governor Odili urged Ogonis to cooperate with the UN team so that what they had been fighting for in a long time would be achieved.
He thereafter announced 200 scholarships to an unnamed overseas university to students from the four local government areas of the state that make up Ogoniland.
Odili urged them to seize the opportunity to ensure that world safety and environmental standards were applied in the area while their students would go abroad and get trained to enable them take up places in the oil and gas sector of the economy as well as other professional areas.
Oct232006