Ogoni people want indigenous company to operate oil field

The Ogoni People’s Assembly (OPA) has called on the federal government to give XAVON Energy the operatorship of OML 11 to break a 26-year-old impasse ‘peacefully’.

The OPA leader, Probel Williams, who addressed journalists yesterday in Abuja, said the company owned by an indigene should be considered because it could work with Ogoni people since it understood their plight.

Williams said OPA, which is a coalition of Ogoni people drawn from all strata of the society’s youths, academia, elders and chiefs, were seeking partnership with any company that can take responsibility to address the current challenges facing the Ogonis.  He said Ogoni nationalities were facing serious existential threats resulting from “extreme youth unemployment (80%) and the security challenges arising thereof.

“It will be recalled that on January 4, 1993, Ogoni people started a campaign against Shell Petroleum Development Company, the then operators of the OML11 for the total destruction of our environment, neglect of the people, and the refusal to address the economic needs of the people by way of industrial development and employment.

“Ogoni people have not been, and are still not opposed to oil exploration but shall never allow further exploration on the terms and modus operandi of Shell PDC’’, he said.