The National Youth Council of Ogoni People (NYCOP) has called for the removal of the Minister of Environment, Alhaji Balarabe Abbas Lawal for allegedly using his company to procure contract in HYPREP without due process.
Making the request in a chat with National Network correspondent in Port Harcourt, the President- General of NYCOP, Comrade Raymond Nwibani, also called for the sack of the Minister’s alleged collaborators who he listed as, HYPREP Board of Trustee chairman, PC, Head of Technical Service and Head of Security Unit.
Nwibani alleged that the Minister used his company to secure contract which he put at N40 Billion without going through the procurement processes of HYPREP and without the Agency publishing the contract for public bids.
Accusing the Minister of having interest in who becomes governor of Rivers State in 2027, NYCOP said such interest should not be to the detriment of the common Ogoni people.
The NYCOP President said the HYPREP was not doing enough to effect the lives of rural community dwellers in Ogoni, alleging that cancer related diseases were now prevalent in the communities because of drinking contaminated water.
He alleged that the water schemes HYPREP claimed to have established in some Ogoni communities have remained moribund and the sites overgrown with grasses and weeds.
Speaking on the power station project the Agency had started, Nwibani doubted its completion and sustainability, as according to him, HYPREP had less than 10 years to wind up operations in Ogoniland.
He also deplored the slow pace of work at the 100 bed space hospital in Tai, saying its completion could take ages.
Nwibani said 70% of what HYPREP claimed to have done in Ogoniland were only on papers and airwaves, stressing there was nothing on ground to prove it.
According to him, these alleged deficiencies on the side of HYPREP were what he was trying to point out for the good of Ogoni people, but regretted that instead of supporting him, some misguided youths of Ogoni had misconstrued it to mean an attack on the HYPREP Coordinator, Professor Nenibarini Zabbey.
An Ogoni youth leader had on Tuesday October 29 in a news bulletin said the youths of Ogoni would declare the NYCOP President Persona non-grata because of his alleged attacks on Prof. Zabbey. Nwibani had however come out to say that he had nothing against the HYPREP Coordinator as his criticisms of the Agency was borne out of his love for Ogoni people and the desire to see that the problems bedeviling them is lessened.
