In a bid to ensure that illegal artisanal crude oil refining activities are reduced to the barest minimum, environmental rights activists have called on State and Federal Governments to put in place adequate measures to stop youth groups in the communities from embarking on artisanal crude oil refining especially in areas where the Ogoni clean-up exercise is ongoing.
They said if the trend is not checked, the clean-up project will amount to efforts in futility.
Though the implementation of the Ogoni clean-up project has faced numerous challenges ranging from inability to provide people in the community with portable drinking water, health impact assessment amongst others, the environmental rights activists are calling on all stakeholders to work together towards the achievement of the overall objective of a healthy and sustainable environment in the Niger Delta region rather than engaging in unnecessary criticisms.
They said in order to achieve these objectives, there is an urgent need to look into the issue of illegal artisanal crude oil refining in the Ogoni communities to address the danger of pollution.
While reeling out some of their recommendations, the environmental rights activists urged the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, to prioritise the establishment of its proposed integrated contaminated soil management centre in order to facilitate the creation of sustainable jobs and proper management of hazardous wastes generated from the clean-up exercise.