Environmental Protection in Nigerian Democracy: The Ogoni Clean-Up in Perspective

This paper examines the progress made thus far on the Ogoni clean-up exercise in Nigeria. Over the years, the people of Ogoniland, a local community in the Niger Delta region, has suffered severe environmental crisis. Despite the fact that Ogoni has produced and continue to produce the country’s largest export resources – petroleum, its environment has suffered from mining activities and the people continue to wallow in environmentally induced sicknesses and diseases. Governments (military and democratic) have neglected the community for long. Nonetheless, in 2016, the democratic government of President Buhari set in motion, the environmental clean-up of Ogoniland. Relying on exploratory research design, qualitative method and primary data sourced from semi-structured interviews, the paper critically appraises the Ogoni clean-up exercise. Findings show that although little progress has been made, the progress has been slow and insignificant over the past three years; the project continues to face series of challenges and that the prospect does not look bright. The paper concludes that Ogoni clean-up is best described as an abstraction at the present. Recommendations were directed to the government, HYPREP, Shell and the Ogonis.