Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — Pro-Ogoni groups based in the United States of America, the Centre for Democracy, Human Rights, and Anti-Corruption, CDHRAC and the National Union of Ogoni Students, NUOS International, have called for a referendum among Ogoni people, to determine whether oil production can resume in Ogoniland or not.
The groups said resumption of oil exploration activities in Ogoniland was not something that anyone could sit in Abuja, Port Harcourt, or Bori and decide upon, without the involvement and participation of the generality of the Ogoni people, just the same way oil production activities were halted in 1993.
A statement jointly signed by the Coordinator of the Centre for Democracy, Human Rights, and Anti-Corruption, Mr. Cornelius Dumerene, and President of NOUS International, USA, Mr. Pius Barikpoa Nwinee, said issues which led to the stoppage of oil production in 1993 in Ogonialnd must be addressed before the referendum.
Dumerene and Nwinee called on the Federal Government to admit their wrongdoings to the Ogoni people, address oil transgressions against the Ogoni people, and exonerate Ken Saro-Wiwa and all others who were labelled criminals and killed, before talking about possible oil resumption in Ogoni.
They averred that issues around the Ogoni cleanup as recommended by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2011, must be fully implemented, and UNEP must verify that its recommendations have been fully carried out, before any discussions on oil resumption in Ogoniland.
“If oil production is to resume in Ogoni, there should be a referendum of Ogoni people that will sit down on a roundtable to discuss and decide the future of Ogoniland.
“Before discussing the possibility of oil resumption in Ogoniland, issues stemming from the stoppage of oil drilling in 1993 and the subsequent crisis leading to the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa with eight others including over 3,000 other Ogoni people must be addressed first.”
On Shell’s proposed sale of its onshore facilities in Nigeria including OML11, the groups stated that nobody can sit in New York, Netherlands, or London and negotiate the sale of OML11 as Shell does not own Ogoni oilfields, having been declared persona non-grata and kicked out of Ogoni for more than 30 years.
“We, therefore, called on the Federal Government of Nigeria and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to reject Royal Dutch Shell’s purported backdoor sale of its onshore facilities in Nigeria without first addressing associated liability issues. A company that was chased out of Ogoni cannot return to sell the same facility that it does not own.
“Thus, we advised Shell to steer clear of Ogoni Oil, which is not for sale, as Shell cannot sell OML 11 because they have been ousted from Ogoni and no court can even grant them such rights,” the groups said.
