Efio-Ita Nyok|18 March 2017
The Federal Government of Nigeria has rejected the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Governor Ben Ayade pet project, the dual capacity 260km superhighway recently NegroidHaven can report.
According to a popular citizen journalist, Ifere Paul, the rejection was communicated to the state government and stakeholders during a public hearing in Channel View Hotel in Calabar this week.
The Minister of State for Environment, Mr Ibrahim Jibrin contended that the EIA was substandard and couldn't reach international best practices. His words, 'the EIA is not of standard, it is too primary, and did not qualify as a working document for such an international project.'
'The EIA Report for the superhighway has to be of international standard. We have to upload it to our website and the World Bank and other international organizations will look at it from there. We cannot accept the EIA Report at the state it is in right now. The EIA team of consultants should go and do a thorough work. They must do the needful', he continued.
The Deputy Governor of the state who spoke at the public hearing admitted the position of Honourable Minister. He admitted that they were supposed to do the needful. In his words, 'now it is very clear that federal government is not against the construction of the superhighway. The federal government wants the State to do the needful.'
Ayade's superhighway has been surprisingly controversial. It's disappointing that the state government's consultants has failed to produce an acceptable EIA. It's even more surprising that a Professor of Environmental Biology still can't superintend over a well written EIA.
Efio-Ita Nyok
Is a Blogger, the Editor & Publisher of NegroidHaven.org
