Seventeen Ogoni communities in Nigeria’s Rivers State have resumed protests against Shell’s plans to revive oil exploration in the region. The communities are demanding that Shell address long-standing issues related to environmental degradation and community development. The protest follows a previous demonstration and highlights ongoing tensions between local communities and oil companies operating in the Niger Delta.
Hundreds of people can be seen protesting peacefully with banners such as “Free Ogoni Land from Economic Slavery”, ‘No to Oil Resumption”, “NNPCL bring back our $300 million” and “No to Sahara Energy”, amongst others
“We have seven key issues we want to address, which concern our observations at the continued struggle of Ogoni communities. We expected that some of these issues we are raising here must have been addressed before now by the federal government. Number one issue is, we are raising concerns regarding illegal oil resumption in the 17 Ogoni communities in Tai Local Government Area that were unjustly destroyed and burnt down with over 300 people killed in 1993 to 1998.
We urge the Federal Government to take immediate actions to halt oil resumption in these communities as the environment and people living in these areas are yet to be restored. Such I have written to Mr. President to find out if he is aware of the operation that is going on in these areas because as of now, many people have been killed and crisis has taken place.
And we don’t want any more crisis in Ogoniland.
So, we are sending this message to Mr. President to give a command that activities in those communities should be stopped and let’s go into negotiations to see how people living in those places can be restored.operations pose a significant health and safety risk of the community members. Federal government should avoid political dialogue without result.
Ogoni communities are yet to hear from Federal government. We welcome negotiations with NNPCL and other government agencies. But this particular company, Sahara Energy, is rejected and declared persona non grata. We reject it totally. Failure of federal government to tackle this lingering issue we would have no other option than to take this protest to FCT” Executive Director, Ogoni Liberation Initiative, OLI, Dr Douglas Fabeke, who acted as a Spokesman to the Ogoni protesters said.
