Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Youth Leaders of Ogoni Oil Host Communities have threatened to shut down the 180,000bpd Trans Niger Pipeline, TNP, over their exclusion by the federal government in pipeline surveillance contract awards.
The TNP, a critical oil transportation artery operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, SPDC, conveys crude from several manifolds and flow stations in Abia, Imo, Rivers, Bayelsa and States to the Bonny export terminal.
The Ogoni youths, who issued a 14-day ultimatum, demanded that the Federal Government must include them in pipeline surveillance contract, or they will make good their threats which will extend to shutting other major pipelines which runs through Ogoniland including the ones owned by NNPC Limited and its subsidiaries.
The President, Youth Leaders of Ogoni Oil Host Communities, Teddy Green, said Ogoniland houses the most oil pipelines, oil wells and flow stations in the Niger Delta, adding that the area has suffered huge environmental devastation and losses as a result of decades of oil exploration and exploitation.
Green who issued the ultimatum while briefing in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, warned that the shutdown of the of the Trans Niger Pipeline will be total if the federal government fails to give in to the demands before the expiration of the ultimatum, saying the countdown has begun,
He said, “After 14 days of our demand. If the federal government refuses to listen to us or to call us for a discussion we are going to shut down the Trans Niger Pipeline in the Ogoni axis including the NNPC and PPMC lines.”
Also speaking, one of the leaders of the body and a Niger Delta activist, Dowell Badom criticized the President Bola Tinubu led federal government for ignoring Ogoni in the award of the surveillance job.
Badom, stated that there are competent contractors in Ogoni who can handle and deliver the surveillance job which he said would have served as some form of empowerment to indigenous contractors.
He further said if the contract is awarded to an indigenous contractor, he will in turn engage the local workforce, composed mainly of youths which in turn would boost the economy of the area, but lamented that the reverse is the case.
He said, “We condemn the award of the TNP surveillance contract to a non-Ogoni indigenous contractor. Today no Ogoni indigenous contractor has engaged the youths there 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 shut down of the TNP.”
