SWAMP and Land Areas Landlords of Nigerian Agip Oil Company have threatened to shut down the operations of the firm over what they termed continuous marginalisation of the landlords.
The landlords, in a statement made available to newsmen in Port Harcourt, decried the persistent and continuous marginalisation of people from the swamp and land areas of the company’s operations in its managerial cadre.
The statement signed by Onisoya Odum, Chairman, and Temple Sambo, Secretary of the landlords, called on the attention of governors of the NAOC operation areas to the treatment of the people.
They vowed to declare a force majeure on the company’s operations should the cabal within the company failed to rescind its decision by reinstating and recalling the affected (marginalised) workers.
Recall that on January 19, 2021, the landlords had protested at Agip head office in Port Harcourt after series of letters and press conferences.
In the course of the protest, the group noted that some of the positions within the NAOC management system had been out of limits to people from their area.
“The best brains from the Niger Delta were been removed and replaced by staff from the Igbo-speaking areas of the country.
It added, “The question therefore is; are there no other persons from the swamp and land areas operation of NAOC who is qualified to fill positions of a Divisional Manager? Is that position only suitable for Igbo and toxic to our people?
“We hereby put all landlords of both swamp and land areas operation to be at alert; there will be a directive to shut down all NAOC operations within our communities until all issues are resolved,” the statement added.
However, efforts to reach the spokesman for NAOC, Denis Masi, proved unsuccessful as he neither answered calls put across to him by our correspondent nor replied a text message sent to his mobile as of the time of filing this report..”
