Ijaw youths give oil companies ultimatum to leave Niger Delta

The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, has given the international oil companies (IOCs) operating in the Niger Delta a 7-day ultimatum to vacate the region.

The ultimatum is coming after the youth council asked the federal government to inaugurate substantive board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

NDDC had been managed by an interim management committee but currently has a sole administrator.

IYC president, Peter Igbifa while addressing the press, asked the oil companies to shut down operations willingly.

He said; “We are not going to carry gun and chase anybody as Ijaw youths but we will stand on our right until our demand for substantive board is inaugurated in the NDDC.

“In line with the ultimatum as the days are counting, we should have nine days remaining to go. All IOCs operating in our region should begin a peaceful and gentle evacuation of their personnel. It should be a very gentle and peaceful evacuation because we do not want anybody to take advantage of the shutdown.

“We want them to take responsibility of their personnel, remove them gently. If you have IOCs that operate flow stations, take the remaining days and time and shutdown them down gently by yourself.

We are not coming to your flow station, shut them by yourself, we want you to shut the flames by yourself and vacate your personnel.

Within these days remaining in the ultimatum, you can take three to four days to shut down and evacuate.”

Niger Delta militants order oil firms to quit Akwa Ibom

Niger Delta militants under the auspices of Unyekisong Akwa Ibom on Monday ordered all multinational oil companies operating in the state to leave with immediate effect over unwholesome practices and atrocities in the oil-producing communities.

In a statement signed by its Leader and Assistant Leader, Gen. Dede Udofia, and Major Ibanga Ekang, and made available to Ripples Nigeria, the group expressed disappointment over the state government’s response to the cries of residents of the host communities whose sources of livelihood, property, and lives had been completely destroyed by the activities of the oil firms.

The group, however, left out ExxonMobil and Savannah Petroleum from the quit notice but asked other oil firms that have refused to relocate their operational base from the state, implement the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the Nigerian Local Content Law in their employment and contract policies to vacate the state.

The statement read: “It is sad to note that since Addax, Moni Pulo, Chevron, Century, Oriental Energy, Savannah Petroleum, Total E & P, SEEPCO, AFREN and AMNI, among others, commenced operations in Akwa Ibom territorial waters, they have enjoyed relative peace without any hostilities compared to other oil communities in the Niger Delta region.

“But our people have not derived any substantial benefits from these oil companies, their subsidiaries, and partners. Rather, we have been subjected to unwholesome deprivations and marginalisation.

The suffering, hopelessness, degradation, and poverty that the oil-producing communities in Akwa Ibom State have been subjected to as a result of their industrial activities since they commenced operations are indeed painful and regrettable.”

More Niger Delta groups urge Buhari to sack Akpabio

A group, the Niger Delta Development Initiative (NDDI), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio.

NDDI based its call on the allegation that Akpabio hijacked the “functions of the NDDC in violation of the spirit and letters of the enabling law” that set up the commission.

This was contained in the group’s petition to President Buhari on Thursday and signed by its President, Ebikalome Tonye Anselm and Secretary-General, Johnson Oghenekevbe.

NDDI also in the petition, appealed to Buhari to inaugurate the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), which he appointed in August 2019.

It said there were currently many illegalities in the NDDC and called on President Buhari to act in accordance with the law setting up the commission.

The NDDI wants Buhari to inaugurate the which had the names of Dr Pius Odubu as Chairman; Bernard Okumagba, as Managing Director and 13 other member nominees, which Buhari sent to the Senate for approval in October 2019.

After the senators gave their approval of the nominees, rather than inaugurate the board, Buhari had instead appointed an Interim Management Committee (IMC) for the NDDC.

In their petition, NDDI said it was Akpabio that advised Buhari against the inauguration of the board, whose objective it said was to join other compatriots to develop the Niger Delta region.

This is not the first time people from the oil region had called on Buhari to sack Akpabio.

In August 2020, monarchs and stakeholders of oil bearing communities had also urged Buhari to urgently restore peace to the NDDC by sacking Akpabio.

They had then accused the minister of being the mastermind of the massive corruption in the NDDC and that he deceitfully misled Buhari to set up the IMC and to transfer the commission to his ministry to enable him hijack it.

NIGERIA WE HAIL THEE!!!

Nigeria’s independence: Six images from six decades

History studies the past, reconstructs the present and attempts to plan the future. Nigeria as an entity will be 60 soon. The pictures, one from each decade, represents moments in the country’s 60 years of self-rule.

1960s – HERE COMES THE GIANT OF AFRICA

A cultural troupe performs during celebrations to mark Nigeria's independence in 1960

After decades of British colonial rule, Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa took on the reins of power and led independent Nigeria’s new coalition government. The celebrations lasted for weeks in some parts of the country and for those present at the Race Course (now Tafawa Balewa Square) in Obalende, Lagos, on 1 October 1960, it was an unforgettable experience.”Just before the stroke of midnight, they switched off the lights and lowered the British Union Jack,” Ben Iruemiobe, then a bright-eyed 16-year-old student who witnessed the raising of the Nigerian flag, told the BBC.”Then at midnight, the lights were switched back on and the green-white-green stood majestically for all to see. This was followed by a volley of fireworks, then the military band played and we rejoiced,”

1970s – A civil war that killed millions

Africa, Nigeria civil war, Biafra, at the front line, young officer ordering an attack.

Seven years after independence, a civil war erupted as Nigeria’s eastern region tried to form the breakaway Biafra state.The three-year conflict, which ended with Biafran surrender, resulted in the death of more than two million people, most of them women and children who died of starvation in eastern Nigeria.For many easterners, the 1970s was a period to recover both emotionally and financially, especially for those who had lost their houses – termed abandoned properties – and all their savings.US-based novelist Okey Ndibe, a child during the war, describes it as the defining event in Nigeria’s difficult history.”The [government’s] main goal was achieved, but at grave human and moral cost.”The ghost of Biafra continues to haunt Nigeria. Festering violence in the north-east zone, renewed agitations for Biafra, and demands by residents of the oil-rich Niger Delta for resource control, are consequences of Nigeria’s failure to use justice as the arbiter of public policies,” he told the BBC.

1980s – ‘Ghana Must Go!’

West African refugees at Benin border

In 1983 the government of Shehu Shagari ordered more than a million West African migrants, most of them Ghanaians, to leave Nigeria at short notice as the country faced an economic downturn.The red, white and blue chequered plastic bag that the desperate departing Ghanaians used to carry their possessions became known as “Ghana Must Go”. But now they are more often seen as a symbol of sleaze in Nigeria, preferred by corrupt politicians to ferry huge amounts of cash.

1990s – Democracy returns after years of military rule

Olusegun Obasanjo standing alongside Abdulsallam Abubakar

After 16 years of brutal military rule, interrupted by 82 days of a civilian government in 1993, democracy returned to Nigeria in 1999. Gen Abdulsalam Abubakar transferred power to Olusegun Obasanjo, who had won nationwide elections.The 1990s was a packed decade in Nigeria’s political history – including the annulment of an election by the military in 1993, the global condemnation of the 1995 hanging of nine environmental activists, among them Ken Saro-Wiwa by military ruler Gen Sani Abacha, and Abacha’s own death in 1998.The handover to democratic rule was seen by many as a culmination of these three events. The 21 years since have seen the longest uninterrupted republic in Nigeria’s history.

2000s – ‘New millennium.

Agbani Darego

On 16 November 2001, when a group of women competed for the judges’ attention at the Miss World beauty pageant in South Africa only a handful of Nigerians were aware of the event.But by the end of the day, millions in Africa’s most populous country had become familiar with the name of 18-year-old Agbani Darego – the first black African to be crowned Miss World.”Prior to Agbani winning it wasn’t easy to get Nigerians and Africans to participate in pageants because they didn’t see themselves winning.”But from having 20 to 50 participants we had hundreds of thousands who wanted to participate. Now the world wants African music, they want African dance. We are black, we are beautiful and we are in demand,” Ben Murray-Bruce, a former organiser of the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria contest, told the BBC.

2010s – Bring back our girls!!!

Members of Bring Back Our Girls group with fists up during a march

In April 2014, Islamist militant group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in Chibok in Nigeria’s north-east, where there is still an insurgency.Boko Haram had kidnapped many girls and women before but the abduction of the schoolgirls sparked a global campaign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls.Bukky Shonibare, one of the leaders of the Bring Back Our Girls Group in Nigeria that protested relentlessly for government intervention to help free the girls, says the abduction greatly affected education in northern Nigeria.”Children – boys and girls – became scared of going to school, and parents had to make a choice of either keeping their children alive or sending them to school.”Efforts at achieving gender equality were greatly affected. Gains recorded [previously], especially around girl-child education, were immensely affected,” she said.After six years, more than 100 of the girls are still missing.