Ben Dunno, Warri
Prominent stakeholders in Egbema Kingdom, (an ijaw settlement) cutting across Delta and Edo state, have decried the ongoing bidding of the 57 margnal oil fields in their area to prospective operators withoout due consultation with the indigenes or a recourse to the plights of their people that suffers from the ecological degradation.
The community in a statement signed by Hon. Joel Bisina and Amb. Jude Ebitimi Ukori (JP), noted that their people had been subjected to adject poverty for over four (4) decades due to the exploration activities in their communities that had kllled both the aquatic and social lives in their aeas.
According to the statement; “The attention of the elites of Egbema people in both Delta and Edo States has been drawn to the fact that a fresh bid round exercise for the award of 57 Marginal Fields to prospective operators is presently on-going.
“It is a well-known fact that Egbema Kingdom is a major producer of Oil & Gas which constitutes the revenue base of the Country.
“As a result of the exploration of Oil & Gas in our communities, the Kingdom has suffered environmental degradation and our livelihoods have been destroyed over the years. Yet the Federal Government has persistently neglected these Communities to live in abject poverty.
“The Egbema Kingdom is host to several Oil Mineral Licenses originally ceded to the IOCs for exploration and production activities and out of which the Marginal Fields were extracted.
“The original intention of creating Marginal Fields was to build indigenous capacity and deepen local involvement in the oil & gas industry.
“Yet, over the years the Federal Government, in its typical manner of displaying absolute disregard for the local oil bearing communities, had flagrantly allocated the Marginal Fields in contravention of the original plan to its own cronies without any regard for the host communities.
“Consequently, some of the Marginal Fields taken away from the IOCs and awarded to these cronies and so called operators have remained unfarmed many years after.
“From all indications, the current bid round for the 57 Marginal Fields is following the same unproductive and oppressive pattern adopted by the Federal Government in the past.
“It is widely rumoured that the current bid exercise lacks transparency and integrity as it was in the past, as the bulk of the 57 Marginal Fields have already been allocated to non-indigenes and cronies of government under the table and this bid round is a ruse intended to give an appearance of following due process.
“We warn that any allocation arising from this exercise that does not take our needs as host communities into adequate consideration would be an exercise in futility as the allotees would not be allowed to effectively farm the fields.
“Therefore, we the people of Egbema Kingdom call on Mr. President to ensure that our rights and interests as host communities in this bid exercise are not side lined through any form of manipulations.
“The result should command the respect and acceptability of the people of Egbema Kingdom in order to ensure a peaceful and productive farming of the Fields in our Kingdom. From the foregoing, we demand the following.
“Egbema people and indeed Niger Deltans should be given the first right of refusal before consideration is given to outsiders.
“At the minimum a 25% equity holding on all the fields within Egbema territory if the federal wants an unfettered access by prospective winners.”