The leadership of a popular socio-political Organization in Rivers State, The Ogoni Frontiers (TOF) has asked Chief Gani Toba to go ahead with the decision to show solidarity to the deprived and now aggrieved people of Kula community over the OML25 Oil bloc in Asari Toru Local Government Aras of the State.
Spokesman and communications Director of TOF, Comrade Alloy Khenom told reporters in Port Harcourt early this week that, anyone raising an eyebrow against the decision by the Conscience of Ogoni People (COP) which, Chief Gani Toba leads, does so out of ignorance of conventionality when the issue concerns deprivation and ecological torture.
Comrade Khenom is, therefore, advising those that are misinterpreting the concepts of solidarity and interference to carefully read between the lines in an attempt to flow with conventional issues.
He contended that, the Ogoni’s have been known to be the first degree victims of suppression, deprivation, brutalization, under-development and bastardization of their ecosystem through exploitation by multi-national firms, particularly the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) and, therefore, know where the shoes pinch most.
The TOF spokesman maintained that it was on this premise that the COP, as a major observer and direct victim of such crimes, felt the pains of wha the people of Kula and other OML25 communities are going through, hence the idea of solidarity.
Comrade Alloy Khenom explained further that, some indigenous communities in a outside Rivers State also showed solidarity to the Ogoni’s when the Nationality were kept under the excruciating hammers of SPDC and its allied military forces in the 1990s, simply because the Ogonis peacefully asked SPDC to quit their land.
“Let me educate whoever thinks Gani Toba is wrong to consider solidarity for the owners and indigenes of OML25”, Alloy said.
“Nigeria as an independent nation knew what our South African brothers and sisters were facing under the Apartheid regime in the Old South Africa and, did not only show verbal solidarity but she also mobilized adequate support that led to the final collapse and dismantlement of that draconic regime on the continent.
“There is nothing wrong with solidarity, so far it is done in the positive way and welcomed by those affected, which we know is the situation in that of Rivers State today”.
That being so, we in TOF advise critics of Chief Toba to reconsider their utterances and welcome him, with both hands, as Shell would have nothing to offer the people, considering the company’s decades of exploitation and bamboozling the innocent people of the Niger Delta region.
