Local Content: Ekpeye Indigenes Threaten To Shut Agip Operations, Today 

The Ekpeye Oil and Gas Pipeline Host Families Association (EOG) has issued serious warning to the Nigeria Agip Oil Company(NAOC) that it would shut down its operations in Ekpeye land, today over non-implementation of Local Content Act.
Chairman of EOG, Mr Dogini Chidi, gave the warning in an interview with newsmen at the weekend, in Port Harcourt.
Chidi said the group decided to issue the warning after NAOC and the Federal Government failed to address the Local Content Act
According to him, “we are saying we want the Federal Government to maximize production, that is the reason we are laying the foundation, because industrial harmony is what we believe in,
but they want to short-change our people.
“So, if Agip fails to respond to Ekpeye people from now till Sunday (yesterday) by rescinding their decision on recruiting of non indigenes to run the contracts that
concerns the Ekpeye people, we will shut them down from their flow station, they will not work no matter the high level of intervention”.
On his part, the Public Relations Officer, EOG, Mr. Austin Ijeoma, alleged that oil multinationals operating in the area had continued to neglect the indigenes of Ekpeye during recruitment processes, lamenting that the development has increased the unemployment level in the state.
In a related development, EOG has raised the alarm over what it described as clandestine activity of the contractor handling the NAOC Pipeline Surveillance in Ekpeye land.
In a statement signed by the Special Assistant on Information and Communications, EOG, Mr Oyagiri Chime-Emele, EOG alleged that the NAOC Pipeline surveillance was ineptly fermenting crises that would likely polarize two neighbouring communities, Ekpeye and Abua, both in Rivers State
Chime-Emele warmed that all oil and gas contractors involved in activities capable of disrupting the peace of the neighbouring communities would not be tolerated, and asked that all contractors remain within the confines of their domain.