The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), Distinguished Senator Mao Ohuabunwa has announced plans to sponsor a bill in the National Assembly to establish the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP) as a permanent federal agency under the Ministry of Environment.
Speaking when he led council members including the Vice Chancellor of UNIPORT, Pro. Georgewill Owunari on a courtesy visit to HYPREP’s headquarters in Port Harcourt on Thursday, Ohuabunwa praised the agency’s progress in Ogoni clean-up efforts and emphasized the need for a legal framework to expand its mandate beyond Rivers State to address pollution nationwide.
Senator Ohuabunwa who represented Abia North Senatorial District at the National Assembly argued that HYPREP’s success in Ogoniland warrants institutional permanence to tackle environmental crises in other regions, including the Niger Delta and northern Nigeria.
He urged deeper ties between HYPREP and UNIPORT, including sabbatical placements for academics and infrastructure support for the university’s pollution research.
The Pro-Chancellor requested HYPREP’s support for UNIPORT’s ₦10 billion endowment fund, linking it to corporate social responsibility and mutual academic-industry growth.
In his speech, the Project Coordinator of HYPREP, Prof. Nenibarini Zabbey assured that the federal government agency will deliver a sustainable clean-up project in Ogoniland
Prof. Zabbey explained that HYPREP is a project under the Ministry of Environment, charged with responsibility of remediating oil impacted lands and wetlands in Ogoni land and also to restore the livelihoods of the people.
He said so far, the agency has provided potable water to 30 communities, assuring that at the end of this year it will provide clean water for additional 60 communities.
“We are also straightening the health care system in Ogoni. We have straightened four hospitals; this year we will add four hospitals”.
Speaking further on their achievements, the project coordinator said “We are building cottage hospital and Ogoni Specialists Hospital.
It is important to state that the specialist hospital will have an oncology unit, because the key findings of UNEP is that the Ogoni population has been exposed to casino-genic contaminants from carbon pollution over the years. So, there is the need to monitor them and take them off cancer and cancer related ailments.
“We are also carrying out our environmental remediation and restoration which we divide into three components: shoreline clean-up, soil and ground water remediation and mangrove restoration.”
He said: “For the first time in this region, we are restoring different species of mangroves. Before now, it was usually the red mangrove, but now we are planting red, white and black mangroves. We have also provided knowledge legacy in the Ogoni land and for the general public.
“We are constructing the Ogoni power project and we are constructing the Centre of Excellence for environmental restoration. We have over 100 projects going on in Ogoni at the moment.
“Last year we provided an educational support grant to 250 Ogoni undergraduate students. This year we issued 300 scholarships to 300 post graduate students from Ogoni extraction, 100 are doing PhD, while 200 are doing Masters.”
Noting that the University of Port Harcourt is the technical backbone of the Ogoni cleanup, Prof Zabbey said “We appreciate this visit because it is a major encouragement for the entire team in implementing this project for me and all my colleagues.
We appreciate this visit and even the promise to support the bill that will elevate the project to an agency”.
