The Forum against Niger Delta Exploitation has expressed displeasure over the news of the planned sale of all Onshore Oil Assets of Shell Petroleum Development Company – SPDC.
SPDC had announced on its website the planned sale of its onshore assets in Nigeria valued at $2.8 billion to Renaissance, a Consortium of four Nigerian firms and one foreign company namely – ND Western, Aradel Energy, First E&P, Waltersmith, and Petrolin.
The Forum against Niger Delta Exploitation led by Niger Delta Agitator Henry Okah who has been incarcerated in South Africa said it will resist any planned divestment of Shell assets in the Niger Delta region following their alleged decades of exploitation of the oil-bearing communities without any tangible developmental footprints, despite the huge economic benefits they have enjoyed in the cause of their operations, and we condemn it in its entirety
The statement said that the latest move by Shell has exposed the depth of inhumanity of the oil multinationals operating in the Niger Delta region and further shows that Shell has learned nothing despite their conflicts with some of its host communities in the Niger Delta especially in Ogoni land, and recently in three communities of Kula Kingdom in Akuku-Toru LGA of Rivers State.
The Forum against Niger Delta Exploitation in a five-point communiqué issued by the Spokesman of the Group General Gboloko noted that the group will resist moves by Shell or any other Oil Multinational to continue to exploit and enslave the people of Niger Delta or the degradation of its territories without any tangible benefits, infrastructural or human capital development of the Niger Delta people and communities.
The group vowed to take their destiny into their own hands, as they have been pushed to the wall and are left with no other choice since successive governments and their representatives have proven to be careless about the wellbeing of the citizens.
The group further resolves as follows:
1. That we shall not sit and fold our alms to allow Shell to sell off all of its oil assets within the Niger Delta territory to their cronies in the name of a certain consortium of five companies, leaving the host communities as the biggest losers after years of suffering from the impact of environmental degradation, unemployment, poor or no infrastructure and others.
2. That Shell should give a first right of refusal to divest some of its assets to indigenous firms whose operational bases are within the catchment areas where the SPDC’s assets are situated in the Niger Delta. Some of the indigenous firms are Century Energy, Fenog Nigeria Limited, Belema Oil Producing Limited, and any other indigenous firm which have proven themselves fit to earn the trust of their host communities and is qualified to handle these facilities and convert same for the economic benefits and transformation of the areas.
3. That the Niger Delta people will no longer accept being treated as second class citizens where our areas would only be good enough for operational bases for oil exploration activities, degradation of our environments without any tangible benefits to our people, while the corporate headquarters of the firms would be taken out of the shores of the Niger Delta territory.
4. That failure to heed our demand would be viewed as an invitation to anarchy, as we shall make sure that non of the so-called companies under the consortium that make up ‘Renaissance’ would be allowed entry into any part of the Niger Delta territory to commence oil exploration activities.
5. That this is not an empty threat as the Forum Against Niger Delta Exploitation led by our Supreme Leader, Henry Okah shall match words with action; and this time, shall not operate in the outdated patterns of just destroying oil installations, but shall come after all those behind these evil machinations against the Niger Delta people, be they top hierarchy of Shell Nigeria, government officials or powerful individuals from the local, state and federal government levels.
The Group in the communiqué warned that Shell’s usual divide-and-rule tactics would not work this time and tasked Shell to do the right thing to avoid misunderstanding with regional stakeholders.
