Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari has reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to ensuring the cleanup of Ogoniland and other parts of the Niger Delta damaged by crude oil spillage.

Speaking during the inauguration of a council for the cleanup, Buhari noted that the project starts five years after the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report but promised to ensure some of the recommendations are implemented.

He charged the communities to ensure security for the project and prevent recontamination of Ogoniland when completed.

He said: “Today marks another milestone in the commitment that this administration has made in ensuring the implementation of the UNEP Report on Ogoniland and other impacted sites.

“This is a very important endeavour that has direct impact on the lives and livelihoods of our brothers and sisters whose environments have been severely degraded by years of unchecked pollution from oil exploration activities.

“It is exactly five years today, on the 4th of August 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) submitted an extensive Report on its environmental assessment of Ogoniland. That report, which was commissioned by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, did not only document the problems that existed, but also contained recommendations on how they can be addressed, both in the short term and in the long term.

“Five years on, the project is yet to properly take off. It would appear to have experienced a series of false starts, while the local communities continue to suffer from the problem, which has existed long before the Report. This all adds to the picture described in the UNEP Report as ‘a landscape characterised by a lack of trust, paralysis and blame’.”

•Adapted from a TV360 Nigeria report. State House Photo shows President Buhari with members of the council for the cleanup of Ogoniland . . . today at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.