Critical stakeholders in the Niger Delta have condemned the reasons advanced by International Oil Companies (IOCs) divesting from onshore assets in preference for offshore fields.
They said that the divestment was contrary to the energy transition advocacy to renewable energy sources, and ploy to evade development obligations and responsibility for polluting the region.
They urged the Federal Government to compel IOCs operating in the region to honour the Memorandum of Understandings (MoU), Global Memorandum of Understandings (GMoUs), and other agreements entered with communities.
These were contained in a communique issued, last Monday, after a one-day “Community Dialogue on Unmasking the Motives of IOCs Divestment in the Niger Delta”.
The forum was facilitated by the Environmental Rights Action Friends of the Earth Nigeria, ERA/FoEN, held in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
They argued that while global divestment advocacy was driven by the quest for cleaner energy sources, the same cannot be said of IOCs who are merely abandoning polluted sites to deep sea fields to escape scrutiny on the operations.
According to the stakeholders, the call became imperative following the divestment by the IOCs who have abdicated their social obligations to their host communities spelt out in the MoU and GMoU.
Oil community leaders, youth and women leaders, academia, environmental and rights activists and the media participated in the forum.
They held that “there is a need for a better understanding and deepened community engagements on the global environmental justice and community definitions of investments vis-a-vis the model of the IOCs in the Niger Delta.”
They observed that community people of all classes have suffered exclusion in the divestment process, noting that the divestment process has largely weakened local struggles for environmental justice, divide communities.
The stakeholders noted that there was the need to integrate the communities to make them the central focus of the ongoing divestment process.
“There is complicit silence by the Nigerian state and the regulatory agencies as IOCs dictate the terms of divestment.
“The decision making on the divestment process and other matters relevant to the local communities in the Niger Delta and the IOCs and Nigerians government have excluded the communities.
“There is the need for the IOCs to decommission their toxic assets and carry out remedial actions monitored by independent bodies and civil societies in the communities.
“Need for de-militarisation of the Niger Delta communities that are legitimately agitating for a safe environment for their development.
“The oil and gas companies in Nigeria should be held liable for nearly six decades of ecocide in the Niger Delta as precursor to remedial actions and compensation.
“Divesting abandoned toxic assets and complex problematic relationships with communities that the Domestic Oil Companies (DOCs) have inherited and continued to perpetrate.
“DOCs have inherited and continued the tradition of impunity and lack of accountability to local communities”, the communique read in part.
In his remark, the Executive Director of ERA/FoEN, Chima Williams, said the it was a fact that divestment has become a major issue as the oil majors abandon their toxic onshore facilities and go offshore where they evade monitoring.
He explained that the exclusion of communities and community concerns in the divestment discourse motivated ERA/FoEN to facilitate the dialogue.
Vice Chancellor, Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa State,Prof Teddy Adias; and Sociology lecturer at University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State,Prof SofiriJoab-Peterside, shared their perspectives on divestment to lay foundations for the dialogue.