…Says No Going Back On Decision To Shut Down Oil Facilities
The people of Urhobo under the aegis of Campaign for the Economic Survival of Urhobo Nation (CATESUN) has threatened to shutdown oil and gas operations in their area if the Federal Government fails to initiate fresh process of ceding out the 57 marginal oil field.
CATESUN in a statement signed by its President, Olorogun Ese Kakor said their call for fresh ceding process of the 57 Marginal Oil Field was necessitated by illegal moves by the Minister for State for Petroleum Resources, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Director General of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), to exclude Urhobo people from the process.
Kakor stated, “CATESUN is using this medium to repeat the call to President Muhammadu Buhari to call his officers in the oil and gas industry to order because they are the architects of this potentially combustive situation, which has the capacity to set the entire Niger Delta on fire again
The group in the statement, vowed to shutdown oil and gas activities in their areas in a week’s time, if the Federal Government refuses to heed to their cries for “fairness and justice”
He noted in the statement that the Urhobo people had in an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, given a 14-day ultimatum for a fresh process of ceding out the 57 marginal oil fields, failure of which “will be met with an equally stiff resistance.
He emphasized that a new process will give competent Urhobo men and women the opportunity to participate in oil and gas activities fairly, having “endured injustice, since the discovery of crude oil in their lands.
Urhobo nation is host to several oil and gas facilities, including the multi billion dollar Utorogu Gas Plant, reportedly the biggest in Africa.
“If by the end of the given date, the unjust, inhuman and definitely satanic process of giving the 57 marginal fields out, with the exclusion of Ur hobo people is not terminated, the Ur hobo nation will take the definite action of shutting down all oil and gas operations going on within her territories. This is not an empty threw, but a clear national action plan, ready for execution. Enough is enough!”
Olorogun Matthew Uparan who also spoke, lamented that despite contributing largely to the national purse, Urhobo people continue to be schemed out from participating in oil exploration, through one means or the other
We have the oil resources, we have the gas. If they will not listen to us that means they are not ready to expire our oil again. We are going to shut down everything. If they sweep our agitation under the carpet, from July 20, they will hear from us,” he warned.
