HYPREP: 5000 Graduands Threaten Protest Over Unpaid Stipends and Starter Packs

The Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP project currently ongoing in Ogoni land, Rivers State, South-South Nigeria may hit the rock as the 5000 graduands who trained under the Balarabe Abbas Lawal-led Federal Ministry of Environment monitored project vowed to protest the non-payment-of-stipends-and-starter packs to them having graduated in over twenty vocations but are being denied the pecks of the training.

Mr Kennedy Obete, who is the representative of the 5000 graduates, spoke to our correspondent at the end of a stakeholders’ meeting held in Port Harcourt, the State Capital, over the weekend said they are being denied payment.

The meeting was held to review the cause of the refusal by the Hon. Lawal’s Environment Ministry to pay contractors to enable them to pay the graduands off preparatory for the labour market. The graduands accused Prof.

NENABARINI ZABE who is the project coordinator of holding down the payment due to the alleged refusal of the contractors to part with half of their contract sum.

Obete said the Contractors are currently being starved of funds over their refusal to pay Prof Zabe a stipulated amount from their contract sum if it means shortchanging the stipends and the supposed starter packs meant for the graduates of the HYPREP project.

Obete described Prof Zabe as a rent-seeking coordinator who can take and give anything in bribe money as he called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to order the Minister of Environment to immediately pay them (graduands) or the nation risks massive protest by the 5000 graduates.

According to sources around the project, Professor Zabe is holding down the funds meant for the settlement of the graduands owing to the refusal of the contractors to give him half of their contract sums in bribe money in the absence of which the project is put on hold and the 5000 graduates of the programme suffer the consequences of the adamant disposition of the contractors.

The graduates, according to sources, are currently starving as they are denied all of their allowances owing to the “greed of one man” who is bent on sabotaging the entire process.

Efforts to reach Professor Zabe were to no avail as calls and messages made to his lines were not responded to but sources around him glibly denied the allegation saying the Federal Government through the Minister of Environment has not released funds to phase out the 5000 graduands.

Meanwhile, Obete vowed that the 5000 graduates are ready to storm the streets in Port Harcourt and Abuja to drive home their demands for settlement to enable them to hit the labour market noting that, every kobo that may have been embezzled by the HYPREP Coordinator will be vomited saying, “he would be taught a lesson of his life.

He is deliberately holding back payment because the contractors refused to share their money with him. We shall take our campaign for the payment of our starter packs to the streets and to reveal to the world the atrocities being committed by the HYPREP Coordinator. He’s a lover of bribe money who has taken racketeering into a lunatic fringe.

Our group has no pleasure of time to issue an ultimatum, but for the benefit of the doubt, the Minister has up till Wednesday next week to pay us all our entitlements. The money belongs to the Federal Republic of Nigeria and not that of Professor Zabe or the Minister of Environment.”

The visibly livid Obete stated saying the graduands have suffered lots of deprivations in the hands of the HYPREP Coordinator.