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Tony John, Port Harcourt
Two persons have reportedly lost their lives in Kegbara-Dere Community, in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State, following two fresh oil spill in the area.
Daily Sun gathered that there was spill from an oil facility owned by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in B-Dere and Kpor communities of the same Local Government Area.
Community sources said that Shell had tried to access the site and repair the damage before the incident occurred.
Reacting to the development, Chairman of Kegbara-Dere Town Council, Elder Dornu Godswill, said that one Nen-Elkpege Legbara and one other person lost their lives at the weekend, while Mr Friday Menu Komene and two others, who sustained bullet injuries, are receiving treatment.
Godswill lamented that their community is under siege following the invasion of military men.
He noted that oil thieves had set the spill at Kpor ablaze, adding that it was gathered that three of the thieves died at the spot.
The community leader wondered why the military that escorted Shell to the area would attack their community when the spills were not in their community, K-Dere.
“On the 18th of April, around 10 pm, we heard sound and we later got information that the oil spill at Kpor has caught fire. It was not our boys that did it. We only heard that some oil bunkerers that were cooking products around that area caused it.
“The next thing we saw in the morning was military attached to Shell. They invaded our community killed two youths, three other people sustained bullet wounds.
“The solders also scattered our market. They chased women that were buying and selling. We have being under siege. We need justice to this kind of intimidation and humiliation. The painful thing is that none of these spills happened in K-Dere. Why is this action against us?”
Spokesman of SPDC Mr Michael Adande, who spoke to journalists, said the company would respond to the allegations raised against it at the appropriate time.
Meanwhile, the factional president of the Movement for Survival of Ogoni People MOSOP, Mr Fegalo Nsuke, has condemned the development, adding that the area is fast drifting into the days of anarchy.
Nsuke said: “Reports available to me indicates that Nigerian soldiers have shot and killed one person in K-Dere, the largest oil producing community in Ogoniland.
“Nen-eekpege Lezor Legbara was shot dead this afternoon, while Kingdom Koomene, who sustained gunshot injuries, is reportedly in critical conditions. It is regrettable that we appear again to be drifting towards 1995.”
Meanwhile, the 6 Division of the Nigerian Army, has denied reports that its men invaded K-Dere community, adding that it was the bad boys in the area that attacked the military personnel.
Spokesman of the Division, Colonel Aminu Iliyasu, in a statement in Port Harcourt yesterday said: “The community was at no time invaded. The bad boys set fire on the TNP and attacked the SPDC technical crew by firing fiercely for over 3 hours from the evil forest as they call it, which can only be accessed through the community from the direction the firing was coming from.
“The escort team returned fire towards the direction of the evil forest until the firing from their side was suppressed. The entire K-Dere community were complicit to the act of attacking the crew and soldiers and that is what they do all the time a bunkering point had to be clamped and taken out.
“It is the community’s usual business to open points and infract the 24 and 28 inch pipelines passing through Ogoniland,” the Army’s spokesman claimed.
