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Elders under the aegis of Gbo Kaabari Ogoni have petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the resumption of oil and gas production in the area to avert bloodbath.
The group’s chairman and secretary, Senator Bennett Birabi and Dr. Desmond Nbete, warned the president that the ongoing activities of the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) – including procurement preliminaries and timelines for the Ogoni retry project – were recipe for a fresh crisis.
The elders regretted that the “activities deliberately fail to recognise that oil production in Ogoni and OML 11 has a unique history that cannot be wished away by an executive fiat for a restart of exploration and exploitation without duly engaging the people in a proper and painstaking conversation.”
The Gbo Kaabari Ogoni observed that the planned resumption strategy adopted by NPDC violates industry standards and global best practices in several respects.
The group accused the NPDC of acting contrary to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) guidelines “by not carrying an environmental impact assessment requirement for oil and gas field development.”
In a related development, the Nigeria Police Force yesterday said it had uncovered plots by some ‘subversive’ elements masquerading as climate and environmental activists to commence coordinated attacks on oil installations in the Niger-Delta and other parts of the federation.
The Force Public Relations Officer, DCP Frank Mba in a statement, said: “These plots which are politically motivated, are aimed at sabotaging oil installations with intended negative consequences on national security, economic development and global oil market.
“Consequently, the Acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has ordered Commissioners of Police nationwide and particularly in designated states to intensify their surveillance missions around oil facilities and other critical national infrastructure.”