Backs oil clean up plan

Buhari says he’s accelerating plans for one of the world’s largest oil cleanups following 50 years of spillage at operations in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta. He approves the composition of a governing council and board of trustees to oversee the restoration plan. A group of ‘stakeholders’ will release as much as $10 million within 30 days of formally creating a trust fund to manage financial contributions, according to an e-mailed statement from the office of the presidency. The UN says the recovery would be the world’s ‘most wide-ranging and long-term oil cleanup’ lasting three decades and it will take an initial capital injection of $1 billion. The two organizations that will oversee the oil clean up will have representatives from the petroleum and environment ministries, the United Nations and the state-run oil company, according to the statement from Buhari’s office.