Mkpoikana Udoma
29 June 2016, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt – The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, has dissociated itself from an alleged negotiations for the immediate commencement of oil extraction in Ogoni between the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, NPDC, and some Ogoni natives.
MOSOP warned the NPDC to steer clear of Ogoni, adding that the corporation should be held responsible for any crisis that may engulf the community.
President of MOSOP, Mr. Legborsi Pyagbara, in a statement made available to SweetcrudeReportsalso dissociate itself from a workshop by NPDC, saying the worshop was intended to be used in deceiving unsuspecting Ogonis into buying into the anti-Ogoni approach.
Pyagbara called on all sons and daughters of Ogoni not to attend the said workshop, maintaining that it is against the collective interest of Ogoni.
“It is most annoying that whilst the corporate world and other friends of Ogoni are joining effort with MOSOP to ensure that the environmental injustice inflicted us is resolved; NPDC is exploiting our disadvantaged circumstances to advance a covert, capitalist agenda lacking human face,” he said.
He added: “We would like to make it very clear that Ogoni oil will not be extracted now that Ogoni is in environmental grief. What is on the Ogoni card now is the clean-up of the spreading and deepening ecological footprints in the area and nothing else.
“It is a shame that whilst well-meaning Ogoni citizens are intensifying and concentrating efforts on how best to move the Ogoni environmental recovery process forward, a notorious Ogoni gang whose social license with the people has collapsed have been holding clandestine meetings with NPDC to negotiate through the back door, commencement of oil production in Ogoni, a highly sensitive issue that requires openness, caution and majority participation. This we consider anti-Ogoni and an affront against our collective interest and should be abated forthwith.
“MOSOP is aware that officials of NPDC unceremoniously entered Ogoni last week and held secret meetings relating to oil production in Ogoni with a selected few, an approach reminiscent of the past, and which has pitched some traditional rulers and their cohorts against the rest of the community. We would thus warn Ogonis not to allow themselves to be used to cause trouble in the region.”