PORT HARCOURT—MOVEMENT for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, has called for the creation of an Ogoni state as a condition for oil exploration to resume in Ogoni land.
In a statement, yesterday, Chairman, MOSOP Coordinators Forum, Mr. Frank Jonah, said Ogoni will not tolerate a situation where states that contribute nothing to the economy fed fat on the oil resource in the area, while Ogoni communities thrive in suffer poverty.
Describing the poverty situation in Ogoni as sad and painful, Jonah said they had continued to suffer from oil pollution and environmental degradation.
He said: “The health situation in Ogoni is terrible with increasing death rate. While the resources of the Ogoni people are taken and shared by the major ethnic groups, Ogoni people are left to die in Shell Petroleum Development Company polluted land.
“If they want us to negotiate, let them create a state for Ogoni as a matter of urgency and necessity, then we can talk.
“And even if we have to agree on resumption of oil exploration after our demands are met, we will not accept Shell back to Ogoniland.”
Source: Vanguard