Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre, YEAC-Nigeria, has accused oil operators of sponsoring crisis in their host communities, to pave the way for chaos and to allow them operate without fulfilling corporate social responsibilities to the people.
YEAC-Nigeria, particularly, explained that the divide and rule tactics adopted by multinational oil companies were behind the ongoing violence and conflicts rocking the leadership of the Rumuekpe youth body, a situation which has led to death of some youths in the area.
Executive Director of YEAC Nigeria, Mr. Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, who made the allegations, said while members of the communities were made to flee in the face of chaos, oil operators, aided by heavy security presence, continued to pump crude oil and gas unhindered, in the same conflict-ravaged communities.
Fyneface recalled that in 2005, Rumuekpe became uninhabitable due to violence from youth leadership crisis, and warned that history should not be allowed to repeat itself in the ongoing leadership tussle in the same Rumuekpe youths body.
He said: “Most oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta are in turmoil due to crisis associated with youth and chieftaincy issues fuelled by international oil companies, IOCs, operating in the area.
“This they do through the fingering and sponsorship of leaderships in communities to create violence, to pave the way for their divide and rule tactics.
“As the Executive Director, YEAC-Nigeria, I, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface can authoritatively say that Rumuekpe community in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State is one of such communities where IOCs have sponsored violence through youth leadership crisis and thrown the once peaceful community into a shadow of itself.
“This manifested in the youth leadership crisis that engulfed Rumuekpe in 2005. The crisis in which the invisible hands was that of the IOCs led to killings and destruction of the community while crude oil continue to flow through and out of the community.
“The violence sponsored by multinational companies through youth leadership crisis in Rumuekpe which the youths fought among themselves extended to the leaders and women of the community with houses burnt and till date, Rumuekpe is yet to fully recover from that violent crisis.”
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