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A civil society group, the Extra Step Initiative (ESI) has sued the Federal Government and the Joint Military Task Force (Operation Delta Safe) for the continuous pollution of the environment in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
The group, which launched Stop The Soot Campaign and one of its representative, Eugene Abels, expressed concern that the air around Port Harcourt and its environs has been constantly polluted for several years now by a particulate matter, also known as black soot.
In the suit filed at the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, it said the continuous pollution of the atmosphere constituted gross violation and infraction of residents’ right to clean environment as guaranteed in the 1999 Constitution.
Respondents in the suit are the Federal Government, Ministry of the Environment, National Environment Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency and the Joint Military Task Force.
In an originating motion brought pursuant to rules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009 as preserved by Section 315 of the 1999 Constitution, the applicants prayed the court to declare soot as a threat to their right to life.
Section 33 of the Constitution and Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act (Cap. A9) Laws of Nigeria 2004, also guarantee that right.
The applicants told the court that on April 26, 2018, the Federal Government organised a stakeholders’ meeting on soot in Port Harcourt where former Minister of State for the Environment, Alhaji Usman Jibril, promised to set up an inter-ministerial investigation team on soot.
However, government failed to keep its promise, just as it failed to issue any communication from any of its agencies.
They also accused the Joint Military Task Force created to curtail the activities of illegal refiners of crude oil and protect national oil and gas assets in the Niger Delta Area of setting ablaze illegally refined petroleum products seized by its men of aggravating the black soot problem in Rivers State.
