THE Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has disclosed that concrete plans are underway by the Federal Government to develop Ogoniland.
Speaking in Abuja yesterday at a forum on environmental restoration of Ogoniland, the minister said the Hydrocarbons Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP) is not the body that will handle funds or deployment of those said funds regarding the Ogoni restoration efforts in tandem with UNEP.
She stressed that the forum is expected to come up with the appropriate structure or entity that would be put in place for the deployment and disbursement of the funds for Ogoni restoration.
Admitting that the Ogoni people have not been adequately carried along in the past developmental efforts, the minister said the trend would change due to a change of approach.
On his part, the President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Legnorsi Saro Pyagbara, lauded the new efforts at genuinely developing the premier oil producing community.
He stated that the struggle for the emancipation of Ogoni people, though torturous, had been a worthwhile struggle.
“When we look back in the 90s when we started and where we are today, we believe that Ogoni has made some progress in terms of making the world know about their story. In terms of making generation, even yet unborn know that at certain point in our history, we did not just sleep but we rose up to say something needs to be done around the issues we consider very important,” he added.
He stressed that the new development initiative is the beginning of starting a new focus and chart a new direction in the implementation of UNEP report.
He said: “We are here today after almost three years after the release of the report and one two three years have gone and I think that whole delay was something that we did not welcome.
Meanwhile, members of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) yesterday suspended loading of petroleum products from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) depots nationwide following unresolved dispute with the national oil and gas conglomerate.
The situation may degenerate into fuel scarcity across the nation if urgent actions are not taken.
The industrial action, The Guardian learnt, was to protest the unresolved dispute on pension funds with the corporation and continued crude swap activities and immediate steps to carry out Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) on the four refineries.
Though the NNPC has assured that it was taking steps to halt the industrial action, even as the National Pensions Commission has given a twelve-month widow for the corporation to comply with the Pensions Reform Act 2014 as amended, the South-West Chairman of NUPENG, Tokunbo Korodo, who confirmed the boycott to The Guardian yesterday, said: “We are boycotting NNPC depots, refineries and PPMC facilities nationwide. We are focusing on NNPC because we have issues with the pensions administration in the corporation.”
Korodo said that the suspension was only from NNPC facilities, adding that loading of petroleum products would continue in private depots.
Corroborating Korodo, PENGASSAN Media and Information Officer, Babatunde Oke, said the strike would continue until there is concrete commitment from the NNPC management to find a lasting solution to the issues.
A statement from the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Ohi Alegbe said, PENCOM had earlier directed the corporation to “immediately take all necessary steps to transit to the Contributory Pension Scheme under the PRA.”
Source: Guardian Nigeria
