Hundreds of Ogoni people on Wednesday blocked the office of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Moscow Road, Port Harcourt, protesting against alleged connivance of Shell Petroleum Development Company and Roborts Michaels oil firm to illegally resume oil activities in Ogoni land under the watchful eyes of NNPC without the consent of the people.
The protesters, who were seen carrying placards and chanting songs were led by the coordinator of Ken Saro Wiwa’s associates, Chief Gani Topba. They blocked the NNPC office, thereby, preventing entrance or exit to and from the premises.
Topba said: “We have come here to let the world understand that the Ogoni people are peaceful people, that we will continue to follow the path of non-violent struggle on issues. Over 20 years ago, Ken Saro Wiwa and Ogoni people declared Shell non persona grata in Ogoni land. Today, the GMs of NNPC are issuing legal license to the Robots Michaels oil firm without the consent of Ogoni people.
“We are investigated the Robots Michaels company and discovered that the company has a lot of issues. They have never been in the oil industry. And what we are saying is that they cannot use Robots Michaels as Shell vehicle to come to Ogoni land where Shell has only 45 per cent of that license given to her and the NNPC has 55 per cent. What we are asking is for Shell to stop that process and if they want to come to Ogoni land, we must talk.
“Our issues on environment have not been addressed. Today $10million was released by Shell. No Ogoni person or anybody knows where that money is. We are protesting in a peaceful way because Ken Saro Wiwa lectured us, as Ogoni people, that we should go on the path of non violence in our struggles and that is why you have seen all those petitions we have sent to the House of Representatives and to security agencies. If by January 4, 2018, nothing happens, we are moving to Abuja. What we are doing here today is a test run of what we are going to do in Abuja,” Chief Toba explained.
As at the time of this report, all efforts to reach the management of NNPC proved abortive as the managers were nowhere to be found following the blockage and could not be reached on phone.
In another development, the people of Eleme have been protesting against the multi-billion naira Indorama Eleme Petrochemical Company for over two days now. The youths, women, and elderly people of Eleme are protesting against the use of Elenor Engineering Company to pay them entitlements from Indorama.
The people of Eleme are also asking the management of Indorama to replace one of their sons with another in managerial positions. The Caretaker Committee Chairman of the Eleme Local Government Council, Hon. Obarilomate Ollor, however, said that the protest was misplaced.
He said: “The youths wanted Mr. Benjamin Gokaya to be employed as the Community Relations Manager to replace Hendricks Ejire who is presently the Assistant General Manager of Indorama. As a people it is not in our character to undo one of our own in order to bring up another of our son.
“I remain in support that the dividends of the host communities must be paid to them directly and that is the stand of the local government and the Eleme Youth Council,” the Caretaker Committee Chairman stated.
Ollor then advised the protesting Eleme people to follow the path of dialogue and eschew all acts that were capable of breaking the security in the area.
He continued: “Yes, that is why we decided that protests of this kind should not even have come up at all because this is the Yuletide period when people are preparing for Christmas and the companies are closing their books for the year. So, there was no need for a protest at this period.”
When contacted, the Head of Corporate Communications, Dr. Jossy Nkwocha, told journalists that the company had set up the machinery in motion to look into the grievances of the people with a view to addressing them.
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