The management of Total Exploration and Production Nigeria, last Monday, accepted responsibility for the casualties in a car crash caused by security escorts conveying expatriates of the company along Eastern By-Pass in Port Harcourt, on June 15, 2012.

The Tide source said that after a two-hour meeting between management of Total, led by the Director of Administration, Peter Igbinovia, and  the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) which barricaded the gates of the company on Monday, the management agreed to commence treatment of all those affected by the car crash.

It would be recalled that  members of IYC took over the main gate of the company in the early hours of Monday, protesting the alleged unfair treatment of the accident victims of the car crash.

The protesters, carrying placards stopped workers of the company from entering the premises, demanding interface with the management and release of the expatriates to them for interrogation.

IYC’s National Director of Mobilisation, Strategy and Planning, Bristle Emmanuel Alagbarigha, who spoke on behalf of the group, said on June 15, 2012, the company’s convoy caused an accident at the Eastern By-Pass which injured six persons.

He said the protest became imperative as several efforts to reach the company’s management for dialogue proved abortive.

According to him, “we are protesting to force total to produce those in the convoy so that they can be prosecuted.

‘We also want to compel Total to take care of the victims”.

Said Alagbarigha: “several Ijaw Youths were injured, including youth from other parts of Nigeria. We are protesting against the injustice meted out to Nigerians by these oil companies.

“We are demanding that, among others, Total should produce the whole people, including the foreigners in the vehicle that committed the offence. They should be arrested, detained and charged to court.

Most of the persons injured do not have jobs and have children. Total must ensure that those injured are treated, he said.

The IYC official alleged that the Rivers State Police Command did not handle the matter properly, stressing that it was part of the corporate social responsibility of oil companies to save life first.

“Our desire is to see that business in the Niger Delta progress and that youths are employed. That is the only way jobs can be created. By the time I went to the company, I discovered that even the people at the gate were keeping quiet.

“I knocked at their gate and told them some innocent citizens have been injured. As if that was not enough, I went in and told them since there’s an accident at their premises, it is your duty as such an organization doing business in our country to move to the scene and see those injured and help to save life first”, Alagbarigha stressed.

Meanwhile, Environmental Engineering experts and former Dean, Faculty of Engineering in the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) Prof Alexander Akor have condemned Total E and P for planning to kill the report over oil blow-out in Egiland earlier this year.

Prof Akor alleged that independent findings revealed that Total E and P “plans to kill the report and not remediate the environment affected by the oil rapture that devastated Egiland and environs”.

The University Don, in an exclusive chat with The Tide yesterday in Port Harcourt said, “ some politicians in Egi hired a consultant who gave the oil company a clean Bill of Health. I was at the presentation and I did not like it.

While calling on the Federal Government to intervene in the matter, Prof Akor opined that all parties must be given opportunity to conduct independent study, and government should ensure that samples taken are distributed for independent analysis.

He lamented the high level of pollution caused by the blowout”, explaining that during the period, there was serious health hazard, “

Prof Akor called on Total E and P to adopt Shell Petroleum Development Company’s health scheme by carrying out free medical checks, and establish health centres to cater for people of Egi land.

Vivian-Peace Nwineache