… Dialogue not sign of weakness –Boroh
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Romanus Ugwu, Abuja and Oladele Oguntimehin, Lagos
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday held two separate meetings over the recent blow-up of pipelines conveying crude oil and gas and threatening the operations of two of the nation’s refineries and power plants.
A new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) had attacked Chevron’s Okan offshore production platform around Escravos in Warri, Delta State, a development that led to the shut down of the facility by the oil major.
The first meeting which started at about 4pm had the service chiefs, the Minister of State and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Ibe Kachikwu and other key government officials in attendance.
The second had the Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, the Amayanabo of Toun Brass, Bayelsa State, King Alfred Diete-Spiff, representatives of oil majors in the country and the service chiefs in attendance. Shell, Total, AGIP, NLNG and Chevron among others were represented.
Dickson and Diete-Spiff joined the meeting with the oil representatives which was still ongoing as at the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, Niger Delta communities stressed the need to support the efforts of the Federal Government in the protection of the oil and gas assets in the region.
Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Brig. Gen. Paul Boroh, who gave the charge in Abuja, yesterday, also noted that the call for people with grievances to embrace dialogue should not be mistaken for weakness on the part of the government or the leadership of Amnesty Office.
“Security is everybody’s responsibility because the implications and consequences of insecurity equally affect everyone. The Presidential Amnesty Programe is a security stabilisation programme and not responsible for the placement and deployment of security personnel in the oil and gas facilities and assets of the Federal Government in the Niger Delta.
“The call for persons with grievances to embrace dialogue is not an indication of weakness on the part of the government or managers of the Amnesty Programme. Rather, we’re in a democracy and people should be allowed to ventilate their grievances without recourse to violence. If their complaints are genuine and reasonable, they will be looked into,” he said.
In a related development, the All Progressives Congress (APC) told NDA to direct their grievances to former president Goodluck Jonathan for allegedly neglecting the Niger Delta and by extension Nigeria, during his five-year in office.
The Southeast caucus of the party in a statement signed by Mr. Osita Okechukwu, maintained that the appeal has become necessary “taking into cognizance the laudable projects President Muhammadu Buhari has lined up for the Niger Delta region, such as the Clean-Up of Ogoniland, completion of East-West road and Calabar-Lagos Rail project.”
Also, the Ijaw Youths Council, the umbrella body of Ijaw youths condemned the activities of the NDA.
The IYC spokesman, Mr. Eric Omare, said there was no justification for the group to embark on the destruction of oil facilities and wreak havoc in the region’s environment.
Omare appealed to President Buhari to go after the real culprits and not innocent communities and people in the region in his government’s efforts to unmask the characters behind the new militancy group.