TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
Ogoni women have decried the rising rate of deaths, particularly among women and hardship in Ogoniland, as a result of the pollution of their environment caused by oil spills and failure of Federal government to fast-track the implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report.
The women also frowned at the way and manner Federal government agencies have relegated them in the course of discussing matters involving the Ogoni clean-up exercise.
The women raised the concerns in Port Harcourt during an interactive meeting they had with the media on the implementation of UNEP report and other emergency measures.
The women who were drawn from the four local governments areas of Ogoni (Eleme, Gokana, Khana and Tai), said they had not seen any sign of the implementation of the UNEP report in their areas.
Earlier, the convener of the interactive meeting, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, had demanded that Ogoni women should be included in the daily activities of UNEP, saying that they should not be relegated to the background.
Executive Director of Kebetkache, Emem Okon, said investigations revealed that women, who are the major stakeholders in the area, had never been consulted when issues affecting their affairs were raised.
Okon noted that one of the key findings revealed that as high as 91.5 percent of respondents indicated that there was no public water supply in their neighbourhood, thereby exposing the lives of the people to dangerous diseases.
One of the participants and an environmental activist, Nwinde Namon, stated that it was only the inclusion of women in discussions concerning the clean-up that would show the Federal government’s seriousness.
She also demanded that the Federal government’s coordinating agency in Ogoni clean-up, Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), should increase the number of women undergoing training for the process.