Bayelsa Community Youths Threaten AGIP Oil Over Contract Violation

The people of Okoroma Clan in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa State have issued a 14-day ultimatum to a multinational oil company, Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), to refrain from awarding contracts belonging to them to others in the state or consider shutting down their activities in the area.
The clan issued the ultimatum on the 16th April 2020 through a socio-political group, Okoroma Volunteers.
The people of the area also demanded that the company renew the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it signed with them in 2006 that had since expired in 2011.
While speaking with newsmen in Yenagoa, the spokesman of Okoroma Volunteers, Comrade Ubani Godwin, said that since crude oil was discovered in the area, communities from the Clan have been continuously denied the opportunity to benefit from oil and gas wellhead, while pipeline surveillance contracts are being awarded by Agip for over nine years to others.
The people further lamented that despite being the only Clan that has Agip crude oil-producing wells and flow stations in the entire Nembe LGA, men, women and youths of the area are never considered for employment into the company since its crude oil exploitation operations in the area.
Ubani said: “As legal owners of the land hosting the crude oil flow stations, Agip had continued to give their legal rights and benefits to some persons in neighbouring communities, thereby leaving them in total neglect”
Explaining further, Ubani alleged that anytime the people attempt to agitate against the ill-treatment, a few saboteurs from the Clan who feed on crumbs from Agip will counter the people’s demands with blackmail of different types.
Parts of the statement read: “The history of Okoroma Clan has it that Okoro, the first son of the founder of Ogbia Kingdom, is the founder of Okoroma Clan. And when Bayelsa was created, for administrative purposes, the Okoroma Clan was attached to Nembe LGA”.