By Adeleye Kunle
The Anti Oil Theft Sensitisation Initiative, AOTSI, has urged the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to put an end to the crippling threat posed by oil companies’ activities in the Niger Delta region in order to save the region’s environment by enforcing laws against environmental degradation, gas flaring, illicit trade in petroleum products, and other crimes in both upstream and downstream segments of the oil industry.
This was stated by AOTSI President, Comrade Abraham Ekokotu, in a speech titled “We Have Agonised Enough, Niger Delta Region Must Smile Again,” delivered Thursday during the unveiling of the group’s volunteer force against oil theft and vandalism, where Professor Godini Darah was the Keynote Speaker.
The Federal Government, the former ex-militant leader noted, has neglected the Niger Delta environment, leaving the region’s unemployed youth with no choice but to engage in illicit oil bunkering and other crimes in the downstream oil industry, a development he noted has a negative impact on the inhabitants and the environment.
Ekokotu chastised the oil companies for gas flaring in the region in the absence of measures to curtail their recklessness for a lack of concern for the lives and property of the Niger Delta people, while the government, through its regulatory agencies, played the ostrich. This, he added, has caused untold damage to the region’s ecosystem, affecting the food productive capacity of the region’s agrarian people, including aquatic life, due to dangerous gas emitted daily in
Ekokotu, who also serves as the national secretary of the Coalition of Urhobo – Isoko Ex-Agitators, is ready to sensitize and educate the public about the dangers of crude burning, vandalism of oil facilities, oil theft, and other crimes, noting that the region should not be allowed to be destroyed by what he calls the FG and oil companies’ conspiracy of silence.
“The group,” he said, “will engage in more intelligence gathering, enlightenment, and education of the people as he sought the cooperation and support of the security agencies to succeed in the task of ending oil theft in the region as he pointed accusing fingers at some security agencies and Petroleum Marketers who he noted connive with illicit oil bunkerers to succeed in their activities,” saying, “enough is enough!”
“The inaugurated volunteers numbering about 500 able body men and women would be deployed in the forests and communities considered the flash points for oil bunkering and other nefarious activities that are injurious to health and environment and onward report to the appropriate quarters, and the same goes for any security agent found to be complicit in the illicit trade,” the Urhobo-born national Coordinator of the group said.
According to him, “it is not business as usual because of the need to save people and the environment.”
Professor Darah, the keynote speaker, vented his rage on the FG, claiming that the government was more responsible for the region’s destruction due to its lax attitude toward anything Niger Delta-related.
He stated that the oil pipelines that run through the region’s landscape were laid over 60 years ago and are due for replacement due to corrosion, but the system’s operators are unconcerned about it.
“The rusted pipes,” said Abraka, Professor of English Language and Senior Lecturer at Delta State University, “are vulnerable and mostly broken, thus emptying its content into the soil. This development, he said, is a deliberate attempt by the government to ruin the region.”
According to the former Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian Newspaper, the government is the true illicit oil bunkerer, emphasizing that the people own their resources while the government arm twists and exploits them without reciprocal returns to the region for development and betterment of their lives, including the environment where exploration activities take place, leaving one to wonder why and how the owner of a property becomes a thief.
Representatives from the National Orientation Agency, NOA, Boufini Rowland Bruce; the Nation Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Iheanacho Chukwuemeka; and the Bayelsa State Ministry of Mineral Resources, Engr. Bipeledei Oweidein were among those in attendance.
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