Oil coys refusal to relocate to Niger Delta, blackmail- IYC

The Secretary-General of the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC,

Kemepado who spoke in Port Harcourt yesterday said it was time the Presidency matched words with action and desist from politicizing the need for the oil multi-nationals to relocate to the Niger Delta Region.

According to him, “Oil multi-national in this country will now take the presidency for granted. It is supposed to be a source of worry to the Presidency that the oil companies were ignoring its directives. We had expected that the presidency would have directed the respective ministries to tell them to begin to relocate to this region.

“We are not happy about their nonchalant posture. The presidency also has a responsibility to defend her stature and give life to pronouncements she makes. The inaction of government to ensure that its directives are carried out to the letter goes to buttress the fact that there are cabals of people who rule this country. That’s not a good sign for our country,” he said.

The Ijaw youths Chief Scribe stated that the frequent excuses of insecurity given by multi-national oil companies for the refusal to relocate to the region amounted to blackmail of the Niger Delta region.

He stated: “Go to the UK you will discover that most of the oil majors stay around the Abadin, the Glassgow area. They are not in London. They are not even in Manchester. That is the global practice. For them to come to Nigeria and think that they can operate in the Niger Delta, pollute the environment, drill the oil here, take all the resources and stay in a place that is far from the Niger Delta is extremely disrespectful.

“Just in 1999-2000, even before then, these oil companies had their headquarters situated outside this region in faraway places in the West. It tells that it is consequent upon bad politics and not because of the environmental challenges,” he continued.

The Secretary-General believed that the relocation of the multi-national oil companies headquarters to the Niger Delta would not only improve the economy of the region, but would also ensure that best practices in terms of environmental issues were given consideration.

“The trade exchange between Huston and Nigeria when it comes to oil facilities is about $15billion. This is almost about the Nigerian budget. If the oil majors stay in this environment, and develop this environment deliberately and consciously move away from this bad politics, we may have had a Niger Delta that would have been operating an economy that is at least $15billion.”