Decades of crude production filled the pockets of powerful government officials and generated huge profits for oil majors like Shell, while corruption and spills left the people with nothing but land too polluted for farming or fishing.

“We would thus implore Mr. President, to, as a matter of urgency, call for nominations from the defined stakeholders to enhance composition of the Governing Council and the Board of Trustees of the intervention agency”, the statement said.

“The PDP commends President Buhari for not discontinuing a process started by previous administrations, which led to the commissioning of UNEP activities in Ogoni as well as setting up of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP), particularly by the Jonathan’s administration, all of which were being gazetted”.

It urged the people of Niger Delta region to rally round the President in his effort to return Nigeria to the path of honour and greatness.

During his campaign, he promised our people that his government would look into the UNEP Report.

But researchers from Amnesty worldwide investigating spill sites in the region have this month “found oil on the soil and in nearby water bodies, in areas where Shell contractors are reported to have recently carried out remediation”.

“Shell has accepted responsibility for cleaning up hundreds of its old spills in the small oil-rich delta region near Port Harcourt, but the spokesman said: “[The money] will be made available when we are sure that the structures are in place, are robust and will be overseen correctly.

“Ogoniland has been devastated by years of oil spills and Shell’s clean-up operations have been utterly ineffective”, Dummett said in the statement.

“As stipulated by the [Nigerian] government, the SPDC Joint Venture is expected to contribute 90% of the $1bn fund. SPDC’s contribution will be 30% of that figure, commensurate with its shareholding in the SPDC JV”, said Shell in a statement to the Guardian. “From what we are seeing, little has changed since then.” said Dummett.

The company described the move as “a key step” in complying with the UNEP report.