Youth leaders from the Niger Delta have called on the Federal Government and the Ogoni Dialogue Committee to adopt the community engagement model used along the Eastern corridor of the Trans Niger Pipeline as the basis for resuming oil production in Ogoniland.
The Niger Delta Ethnic Youth Leaders Forum said the model, developed by Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (PINL), the integrated pipeline infrastructure company responsible for the Eastern corridor of the TNP and the Eastern Gas Network, offers a working template for the dialogue process which is ongoing.
Spokesman for the group and President-General of the Ogoni Youths Federation, Legborsi Yamaabana, said the youths are not opposed to oil resumption in Ogoni.
He spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting convened by PINL in Port Harcourt for host communities along the Eastern corridor on Thursday.
Yamaabana, however, said the youths of the area must be brought fully into the process, rather than being excluded from the ongoing dialogue with the apex government.
Recall that the Ogoni oil fields have been shut in for 33 years, precisely since 1993, following the disagreement between the people and oil giant, Shell.
Continuing, Yamaabana stated, “There is a model that PINL has adopted and implemented in the Niger Delta, and that model is working. It is a model of constructive engagement, of inclusion, of carrying the host community along.
“In all of this dialogue, the youths of Ogoniland have been excluded. If those driving the Ogoni re-entry lack ideas, they should go and meet PINL for the model they are using to succeed.”
Earlier, the General Manager, Community and Stakeholder Relations at PINL, Akpos Mezeh, told the meeting that operations across the TNP and the Eastern Gas Network were largely uninterrupted through the past month, sustained by collaboration with security agencies, contractors and host communities.
Mezeh said the African Atlantic Gas Pipeline, designed to move 30 billion cubic metres of gas a year from Nigeria to Morocco and now covered by a sovereign framework agreed by ECOWAS Heads of State, depends on the same conditions.
“World-class energy infrastructure can only thrive where pipelines are secure, communities are peaceful, and stakeholders work together,” Mezeh said.
Engr. Akponime Omojevwhe of the NNPC Limited Project Monitoring Office commended the Emohua zone for recording no case of infraction or vandalism during the period under review.
Traditional rulers at the meeting, including the paramount rulers of Emohua and Eleme kingdoms, said the engagement model had changed the terms of oil and gas operation in the region, and urged the company to sustain it.
