OIL COMMUNITIES CRY IN IMO STATE(Part 1)

 OIL COMMUNITIES CRY IN IMO STATE(Part 1)

• Accuse oil firms:
• Sterling Global is Damaging Our farmlands..…
• They Fall Electric Poles…
• Use Soldiers to Chase us… Obokofia youths
• This Company denies Us Unskilled Labor
• Their Tankers Damage our Roads
• Neglect Social Responsibility

By Jacob Aguomba with additional reporting by Stephen Uzoegbu

 and Uzochukwu Peter

Etekwuru and Obokofia are next door neighbors and together they bear the brunt of the ugly aspects of petroleum exploration and exploitation. The inhabitants are also united in their cry of neglect by oil companies operating in and around their domain. Etekwuru is densely populated and set on top of a huge underbelly of vast deposits of crude oil and gas. It is also home of an Ocean oil well.  The major oil companies have harvested and continue to exploit the seemingly endless flow of the liquid gold in both communities. But that is hardly the news; what raises the eyebrow is that these communities are still in the same state of a bushy and unkempt marshland as when Agip and Shell came here and drew their first million barrels of crude oil nearly 40 years ago. Obokofia also have an Ocean well as well as 9 other oil wells. But Brain Ojikwa, youth president of Obokofia Community told this correspondent that while the oil companies collect their oversize profits, the government collect royalty in billions, leaving the oil host communities with  pittances and the overwhelming nightmare and anguish that come as  backlash of crude oil exploitation which often manifest in damaged eco- system.   There is also untold trauma, associated with the fear of possible fire outbreak at anytime and a devastated environment which come from gas flaring, acid rain, oil spillage and pipeline routes, all of which has combined to create an assortment of diseases and frequent ill-health for a tolerant and law abiding population that have not a single healthcare centre or access for Medicare anywhere less than 10 kilometers away. ” The people are crying and complaining because crude oil exploitation has taken away their fishing in the polluted river and has finished off any other form of aqua life in the swamps”. Where and to whom have you people taken your grievances as an organized youth body?,  Mr. Ojikwa was asked and he said: “Thank you for that question, we have over the years tried to avoid the troublesome side effects of restiveness , or violent protests but a company operating close to us here at Awgwa, Oguta Council Area. It is named Sterling Global Oil Exploration Company. They recently embarked on a new pipeline project which traverses our land. They did not have the courtesy of  a simple routine  information to us; they brazenly entered farmlands, destroying cassava, vegetables and other farm crops ostensibly because somebody in government had obviously given them authorization to lay pipe from their oil well in the neighboring community to Abuja, Kano or is it the London gas pipeline to the rest of Europe?. We went to stop them, hoping to have opportunity to discuss and reach an arrangement where people could quickly harvest their farms and give them chance to do their work or receive some compensation in lieu of their ancestral land. The Sterling executives agreed for a meeting but when the date and time came,  we assembled but Lo and behold, the overbearing executives of Sterling Global Oil Company brought in soldiers to chase us away like common criminals. We went to register our displeasure at the DSS office and sent in a written complaint to the governor’s office at Owerri but nothing came out of that till date; What that means is that you are pushing the people to the wall which may force them to seek redress by unconventional methods or violent reactions so that your hand-tool soldiers may find an excuse to kill people. We are wiser than that. We are law abiding citizens. But,  I can assure you that we have not heard the last word yet on our dealings with Sterling Global Oil Company. At the right time, they will have to negotiate with us”, he said.  At the Base Camp offices of Sterling Global Oil,  this correspondent met Mr. Chidi Onyeadi, an executive in the Community Relations Department of the company but he refused to speak on the numerous issues raised by the community and instead he said:  “The press is very dangerous, your pen can destroy anybody. Please go as I cannot speak to you unless I get permission from Lagos office”. The next day, he also refused to receive our letter addressed to Dr. Offorkansi, a senior Human Relations executive of the company, harshly insisting that  “nobody will receive a letter here, Lagos is where they will accept letters or talk to the press, not here”.

While he poured more invectives on the press  which according to him were mere jokes, Mr. Ebi Stanley, head of Community Relations, Base Manager Mr. Ernest Kanu were meeting with youths of Etekwuru Community who had earlier stopped the company’s tankers lifting crude oil from the various oil wells operated by Sterling Global Oil Company from plying the Etekwuru sections of the only major road connecting the many facilities, 9 oil wells and tank firms which the company owned in Awgwa, Obotti and other places in Oguta and Ohaji/Egbema Council areas of Imo state.

At Etekwuru, Comrade Stephen Nwadiogo,  president of the youth body in the two communities of Ogbomadike and Oloshi which make up Etekwuru Town told this correspondent that the youths had to stop the tankers because Sterling Global Oil was operating in negligence of community and corporate social responsibility. “They have continually denied us the employment of even unskilled labor, damaged our roads and have no support for our school education while their crude oil operations and gas flaring is gushing toxic fumes that have proved very harmful to human health. This company does not care to provide maintenance repairs to this road built for us nearly 40 years ago by Shell. They do not involve us or even collaborate in any development project such as market, healthcare facility or scholarships for indigent students”. Asked to describe the outcome of their meeting with officials of Sterling Global Oil, Comrade Nwadiogo said, “Okay, we had an understanding to meet again, there were no commitments because each side had to go, make consultations and prepare but when we meet again, we are going to place our cards on the table; it’s not going to be arguments on whether their oil wells are directly on our land or not. By now, they understand that oil producing area is not only the immediate owners of the point or sit of the oil well. Yes, as you know if you drill oil, you  will have to pass through some neighborhood to evacuate the oil and when your crude spill,  it seeps into somebody else’s farmland or river that gives the next community the fish that is their livelihood. So, our experience is that in operating an oil well, what you do in one village or community affects the others around you”.

  Mr. Stephen Ugorji, youth chief security officer (CSO) said, “Sterling Global is operating with impunity. They have no interest in the welfare of the host communities and sometimes, I begin to wonder whether these companies are wicked by nature or orientation. Let me buttress a little, Agip started drilling oil here in 1976 but could not give us electricity light until year 2000. Now you can only imagine what embarrassment we had to pass through in the preceding 24 years. Now it is just as well that the people have decided they have had enough of the preachments of peaceful conduct. They are now demanding a new leaf, olive or maple. Again, indigenes and all        

 residents are complaining of calculated negligence by some overbearing oil companies and their official partners governing in denial of the rights and privileges of host communities; and this is regardless of the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

 At Obokofia, the masses are in total darkness because “a Sterling Global tanker had pulled down a high tension electric pole by accident and the one tanker hit, pulled with it, many more” ,   Ohakwe Clinton, vice president of Obokofia youths recalled, adding “and as I am talking to you, we have had no light for several months now because Sterling Global is still arguing how one tanker could have pulled down so many poles”. Ekele Oduagu said: it is difficult to understand why these companies want to drill all and take all, they have refused to dualise this major road which Shell built so many years ago, the road is now proved too narrow for the many round runs their tankers do here on daily basis. Their tanker are forever on high speed in such a manner as if no other person has a right to use the road, you can ask anybody around how many people they have smashed to death in this Obokofia. What does it take to do a 10 kilometer road? They lift crude from here, over 100 tankers which carry a load of 45,000 liters; and valued by NNPC Ltd current price tag, it is worth about 43 million naira each and now that is a lot of money every day”!