Ogoni youths demand pipeline surveillance contract
Youth leaders of Ogoni oil host communities of Rivers State have threatened to shut down the Trans Niger Pipeline, which runs through the area, over the alleged failure of the Federal Government to award the surveillance contract to a contractor from the area.
The youth said Ogoni housed most of the oil wells and flow stations in the Niger Delta, adding that the area had suffered huge environmental devastation and losses as a result of decades of oil exploration and exploitation.
The youth issued a 14-day ultimatum for the government to consider the proposition or they would make good their threats, which would extend to shutting down the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited and the Petroleum Product Marketing Company.
The Trans Niger Pipeline operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company conveys crude oil to the Bonny export terminal in Bonny Island, Rivers State.
Handing down the ultimatum at a news briefing in Port Harcourt, on Wednesday, the President of Youth Leaders of Ogoni Oil Host Communities, Teddy Green, warned that the pipeline shutdown would be total if the Federal Government failed to give in to its demands.
“If the Federal Government refuses to listen to us or to call us for a discussion after 14 days of this demand, we are going to shut down the Trans Niger Pipeline in the Ogoni axis, including the NNPC and PPMC lines,” he said.
Also speaking, a Niger Delta activist, Dowell Badom, criticised President Bola Tinubu’s administration for ignoring Ogoni in the award of the surveillance job.
Badom said there were competent contractors in Ogoni who could handle and deliver the surveillance job.
He said awarding the contract to them would have served as some form of empowerment to the indigenous contractors.
“We condemn the award of the TNP surveillance contract to a non-Ogoni indigenous contractor. Today, no Ogoni indigenous contractor has engaged the youth with a monthly stipend of even N40,000 the same way they operated with clusters and our youths could not purchase as little as a bicycle.
“So, putting things right in the Ogoni area is our priority. In the Niger Delta region, Ogoni Host Communities have the highest number of oil wells, flow stations, manifolds and TNP.
“It is, therefore, imperative that the National Security Adviser, NNPC and Shell allocate a section of the national surveillance contract to Ogoni indigenous contractors or face the shutdown of the TNP,” he said.
