Ogoni Landlords Threaten To Sue SPDC

Landlords of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in Bera Community, Gokana Local Governemnt Area of Rivers State, have threatened to drag the oil firm to court over alleged attempts to annex their lands.
The aggrieved landlords under the umbrella of Bera-Shell Landlords Assocaition (BSLA), have already sent a protest letter to the company’s Managing Director through the body’s legal counsel, Barrister Abgidum Nyone.
The letter dated March 17, 2014, accused SPDC of playing divisive politics with the lives of members of the community.
The protest letter warned the multinational to stop constituting any committee to discuss and establish surveillance groups, award contracts to persons or groups on their land, circulate documents likely to have adverse effects on their interest.
It also urged Shell to desist from encouraging any person or group to enter or trespass on their land in whatever guise without their consent.
The landlords further advised the company to retrace steps taken so far and to caution one Chief Sunday Deekor, the paramount ruler of Bera Community stressing that he does not have their recognition and as such cannot represent their interest.
The association alleged that Shell and its cronies, in their deliberate determination to force themselves upon their community had devised a strategy aimed at short-changing individual ownership in replacement for community ownership as to deal directly with paramount rulers  in Ogoni.
It alleged further that the ploy was the company’s tactic to resume operations in Ogoni land after years of having been declared persona non grata and vowed to resist any attempt to actualise any illegality through the back door.

Chris Oluoh