813 Bunkerers Surrender In Ogoniland

As the deadline set by the Joint committee on stamping out illegal oil bunkering in Ogoniland expires today, about 813 persons involved in the act have surrendered their equipment and implements of trade to the committee.

Also recovered were four barges loaded with locally refined products, three of them still on the high sea, while one was anchored at the Bodo Creek, including a truck loaded with drums of products covered with sand.

Speaking while receiving the repentant bunkerers and their equipment at Kpor, headquarters of Gokana Local Government Area, Friday, the Chairman of the Joint Committee, Mr Oji Ngofa, thanked those who were in the illegal act for yielding to the call to denounce the act and surrender their equipment.

Mr Ngofa, who is also the Chairman of Eleme Local Government, said anyone that engages in the act with effect from today, would be arrested and prosecuted, and advised the repentant ones to seek for legitimate means of livelihood.

He urged them not to use the excuse of unemployment to commit crime that would further devastate the environment of the Ogoni people, and enjoined them to avail themselves of the skills acquisition programmes existing of the various councils in the area.

 Mr Ngofa equally disclosed that the Committee, through a tip-off, apprehended a tipper with registration number Eda, BE 700 BEN loaded with 10 drums of locally refined diesel from Bodo illegal refinery in Gokana, that was covered with sand to deceive the public, with two of its occupants.

The Chairman said those arrested have confessed to the crime and assured that his Committee would continue to sustain the efforts to ensure that illegal bunkering activities are eliminated from Ogoniland.

Also speaking, a member of the Committee and Chairman of Gokana Local Government Area, Chief Victor Giadom, said the Committee has been working with the mandate of the state government to stamp out bunkering activities in the Communities of Gokana, Tai, Khana and Eleme.

Chief Giadom said the Committee had earlier held meetings and enlightenment campaigns in the various Communities before swinging into action, which led to the success recorded so far.

He advised the security agencies to ensure effective punishment for those that fail to surrender voluntarily after the expiration of the deadline, stressing that the state government was determined to stop the illegal activities in the area.

The Gokana Chairman said illegal bunkering activities had further devastated the Ogoni ecosystem and destroyed fishing and farming activities of the local people, adding that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) officials working in Ogoniland were worried by the activities of the bunkerers as they generate new spill sites in Ogoniland.

Some of the illegal bunkerers who spoke to newsmen said they were in the business because of lack of job openings, and gave assurance that they would not go back to the illegal activities, but would rather seek alternative means of livelihood.

It would be recalled that at a stakeholders’ meeting with Ogoni people two weeks ago, Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi set up a Joint Committee of Ogonis drawn from the four Local Government Areas to collectively stamp out the local refineries in the area.