Tony John, Port Harcourt
Two people have reportedly died in Kegbara-Dere community, in Gokana Local Government Area of Rivers State, following two fresh oil spills 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 council.
Community sources said Shell had tried to access the site and repair the damage before the incident occurred.
In his reaction to the development, Chairman of Kegbara-Dere Town Council, Dornu Godswill, said one Nen-Elkpege Legbara and one other person, died at the weekend, while Friday Menu Komene and two others, who sustained bullet injuries are receiving treatment.
Godswill lamented that their community is under siege following alleged 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 on the spot.
“On April 18, at about 10:00pm, we heard a loud 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 illegal oil bunkerers 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 been 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?”
SPDC spokesman, Michael Adande, told newsmen the company would respond to the allegations raised against it at the appropriate time.
Meanwhile, factional president of the Movement for Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) Fegalo Nsuke, condemned the development, adding that the area is fast drifting into 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 condition.
“It is regrettable that we appear again to be drifting towards 1995.”
Meanwhile, 6 Division of the Nigerian Army, has denied reports that its men invaded K-Dere community.
The Division said it was the bad boys in the area who attacked the military personnel.
Spokesman of the Division, Colonel Aminu Iliyasu, who released 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 three 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 in 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 said.