Oil multinationals operating in the Niger Delta have been called upon for the umpteenth time to relocate their headquarters to the region.
The renewed call was made by Ambassador Anthony Ejiofor while addressing women during the distribution of food items worth over one million naira to widows and indigent folks in Warri, Delta State.
The Warri-based business mogul opined that if the oil multinationals relocated their head offices to the Niger Delta, the region could be healed of ravaging poverty.
Ejiofor, who is the Chief Executive Officer of LightWorld & Industries Nigeria Ltd, said that the philanthropic gesture was part of his corporate social responsibility to the host community where he plies his trade.
Ejiofor said that he had been doing it for the past five years, adding that the over 300 persons benefited from this year’s largesse.
“What the oil companies are doing in the Niger Delta region is bad. All the headquarters of oil companies should relocate to the region because these are the people feeling the impact of pollution and environmental degradation.
“I have said that as long as my businesses are here, we will continue to perform our social cooperate responsibility to the people because I am also benefiting from them.
“We are targeting the widows and the less privileged in the society. We owe as a duty to help the less privileged in the society.
“We want to encourage other business owners in Warri to also key into what we are doing for the less privileged in the society,” he said.
Ejiofor commended Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State for creating an enabling business environment in the state.
“As an economist, I know how the economy works and I can confidently tell you that Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa has been able to balance the economy and he had brought a lot of confidence to investors.
“We are doing what we are doing today because of what governor Okowa had put in place,” he said.
The business mogul said that plan was underway to extend the humanitarian gesture of the scholarship for children of the widows.
“We are looking at giving University scholarships to children of the widows in the society because we believe that once we empower one person in the family that person can empower others,” he said.