… Seeks an end to corrupt practices in Nigeria
From Douglas Blessing, Port Harcourt
A nonagenarian, Che Ibegwura, has lamented the level of degradation of Niger Delta environment orchestrated by activities of oil companies and other illegal operations in the region.
This as the environmental activist has berated the Nigerian politicians over increase in corrupt practices.
The environmentalist who have been in the forefront of activism for over three scores regretted that corruption has eaten deep in the society, affecting all the systems in the country.
Ibegwura made the assertion yesterday, when an international environmentalist, the Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, led a coalition of civil society groups to his residence in Erema, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State.
According to the nonagenarian, the system would have been better if corruption did not structure in the administration of the civil service. He stated that President Muhamnadu Buhari is not promoting corruption but working on established corrupt system.
He said: “Corruption is an abuse of justice. Corruption is entrenched in the civil service and that is why every government that comes in operates on that. It is the ruling class of capitalize that rule the country because they are the agents of the political actors.
“They prepare all the documents, any politician that comes sits at the top and they start looting the treasury.
“Unless we change the system of education which will also change the system of our thinking, there can never be any change. The problem we are having is not President Muhamnadu Buhari, APC, PDP or not, but the problem is the ruling elites, the political class that has started to be changing the good educational system.
“You cannot come out openly to stop corruption or you will be corrupted. When the state is vandalizing the country, when the labour leaders are already corrupted.
“I have been in trade union for so many years, the only way we would have put all these exploiters under control would have been to use experienced and conscious workers who wouldn’t sabotage the productive force not to vandalize it.”
On the degradation of the Niger Delta environment, Ibegwura stated that the system is the way it is because of the power government took away from the indigenes in the usage of their lands
“The environment is our life but because of exploiting of natural resources, they start to stampede the earth. Companies and individuals terrorise the land.
“Farming had been driven to the background, money is ruling us and we do not consider other things that develops human and environment.
Most of the companies that are exploiting the resources and polluting the environment employed the indigenes. Alot of damage has been done and our people have already assimilated into the foreign powers and this Land Use Decree has deprived us of the power of thinking of our land”, Ibegwura lamented.
Earlier, Nnimmo Bassey, noted that environmental issue is complex, described Che Ibegwura as a bundle of knowledge who has fought selflessly for a clean and conducive environment in the Niger Delta and Nigeria at large.
He lauded the nonagenarian, saying that “At 90 he is still radical like people at 20s”
