Communities Protest Against Oil Company In Akwa Ibom

4 July 2013 The host com­mu­ni­ties of Uni­ver­sal Ener­gy Resource, an oil com­pa­ny, have staged a peace­ful protest against it for alleged non-imple­men­ta­tion of devel­op­ment projects in 2012.

The protest was staged by the peo­ple of Ntak Inyang in Esit Eket and Unyenge in Mbo and com­mu­ni­ties in Oron Local Gov­ern­ment Areas of Akwa Ibom on Wednes­day.

The News Agency of Nige­ria (NAN) reports that their plac­ards had the fol­low­ing inscrip­tions: “imple­ment the pro­vi­sions of the MoU; we reject injus­tice, we reject divide and rule sys­tem. No com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment, no uni­ver­sal ener­gy.”

The Sec­re­tary of Mem­o­ran­dum Imple­men­ta­tion Com­mit­tee (MIC), Chief Okon Ani, said the protest was aimed at remind­ing the com­pa­ny of the agree­ment it signed with the host com­mu­ni­ties.

Today’s protest is peace­ful but the next one may not be peace­ful. The prob­lem is that the oper­a­tion of the com­pa­ny is sup­posed to be that of empow­er­ment but it has turned out to be exploita­tion.

The 2012 devel­op­ment project is long over­due and it has not been imple­ment­ed

For the eight years that the com­pa­ny has been on ground, no pos­i­tive devel­op­ment impact has been made by the com­pa­ny to the host com­mu­ni­ties.

We want the world to know that the com­pa­ny has not imple­ment­ed any item in the Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) they signed with the host com­mu­ni­ties.

The Local Con­tent Act has been total­ly neglect­ed by the com­pa­ny in terms of employ­ment, con­tract awards, schol­ar­ships and empow­er­ment of youths and the women from the host com­mu­ni­ties.

It is bet­ter to address these press­ing issues before the youths become hos­tile and make it dif­fi­cult for the com­pa­ny to oper­ate in our envi­ron­ment,” Ani said.

The Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Finance, of the com­pa­ny, Mr Ukpe Udoette, said 99.9 per cent of the imple­men­ta­tion of the MoU has been achieved with the relo­ca­tion of the company’s head­quar­ters from Lagos to Akwa Ibom.

The relo­ca­tion would make it eas­i­er for the com­pa­ny to address issues affect­ing the host com­mu­ni­ties.’’

He said the com­pa­ny could not act uni­lat­er­al­ly with­out the con­sent of Sinopet, a Chi­nese com­pa­ny.

The Pub­lic Affairs Offi­cer of the com­pa­ny, Mr Aniefiok Ewaud­ofia, said it had a lot of empow­er­ment and devel­op­ment plans for the host com­mu­ni­ties.

The com­pa­ny is not giv­ing deaf ears to the host com­mu­ni­ties because if we do that, it means we don’t want to be wel­comed.

The host com­mu­ni­ties at this moment should be rejoic­ing that the com­pa­ny has final­ly relo­cat­ed its head­quar­ters from Lagos to Akwa Ibom,” he said.

He said that the issue of employ­ment, empow­er­ment and schol­ar­ships would be resolved quick­ly fol­low­ing the relo­ca­tion.