Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, has urged the National Assembly to address the environmental and human rights concerns raised by host communities, regarding the divestment plans of international oil companies in the country.
The Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, Chima Williams, during an advocacy visit to the Minority Leader of the House of Reps, Hon. Kingsley Chinda, as part of ERA/FoEN’s efforts to ensure that oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta were not short-changed by divesting IOCs.
Speaking, Williams explained that the controversy generated by the plans by Italy’s Eni to sell NAOC to Oando has exposed how IOCs recklessly abandon their obsolete facilities and toxic assets to indigenous companies, in other to escape shouldering their liabilities.
He stressed that the decision of the international oil firms to leave the Niger Delta region without remediating oil pollution on farmlands and water bodies was tantamount to sucking the juice from a fruit and leaving the chaff behind.
“In virtually all the cases where IOC divestment has happened, host communities feel used and dumped hence a legislative intervention has become necessary.
“A public hearing is one among several approaches to address the new trend of the divestments by the multinationals, as they now see divestment plans as a way of running away from their responsibilities.”
The ERA/FoEN boss further revealed that the group in documenting the divestment processes from the perspective of the host communities, has been working with communities in Bayelsa, Rivers, Edo, and Delta among others, to articulate the demands of the people in a policy brief, for a way forward in holding IOCs to account.
Responding, the Minority Leader of the House of Reps, Hon. Kingsley Chinda, assured that the National Assembly will be willing to hear from affected host communities and that he will continue to promote Bills and legislations that uplift the standard of living of Nigerians.
Chinda added that the issue of IOCs’ divestment touches the very core of the lives of Niger Delta communities, describing environmental pollution as one of the numerous challenges caused by oil exploration activities.
The lawmaker also pledged his readiness to continue working with civil society groups in the Niger Delta, to address the plight of host communities and the issues created by oil extraction.
