…Expresses Shock Over PIB’s 3% To Host Communities
As the rapid degenerating deplorable state of the Eleme-Onne axis of the East West Road, Rivers State, continues to stir reactions from concerned Nigerians, the Ogoni Peoples Assembly believes this neglected all important road may have been deliberately left on the drawing board to serve as campaign topic for political actors.
The Ogoni pressure group represented by Rev. Pobel Williams (Leader), Celestine AkpoBari, Hon. Demua L. Demua, Chief Mike-Lube Nwidobie and Barri. Dr. Paul S. Obea made the remark at a press briefing to the government and people of Nigeria in Port Harcourt recently.
Recalling that the agitation and clamour for rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Warri-Kaima-Port Harcourt-Eket-Oron federal highway, otherwise called “East West Road’ has lasted too long, the group said there must be other reasons best known to those responsible for the delay.
More worrisome, it pointed out, was the last minute withdrawal of the completion of the work from the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) back to the office of the Minister of Niger Delta affairs.
President Buhari had directed that the East West Road be included in the PIDF to accelerate the work pace and timely completion after a contingent of Ogoni leaders visited him in Presidential Villa, Abuja in 2018.
Depositing the delay in fixing the road on the doorsteps of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, the Ogoni Peoples Assembly said all the other projects taken over by PIDF have been long completed except the East West Road that was recalled by Godswill Akpabio.
“The refusal of the Minister for Niger Delta Affairs to do anything about this particular Eleme-Onne section of the East West Road has caused the Ogoni people and other Nigerians travelling through that axis, untold hardship and total crippling of their business as a journey of just 45 minutes now takes as much as six to twenty hours. The Aleto Bridge is fast becoming a death trap as trailers and tankers fall inside the river daily. Ogonis now take the risk of travelling through Oyigbo with its security challenges to go home or to attend to their businesses in the city; the group regretted.
On the 13% to host communities recommended for the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), the group said the allocation was one of the greatest insults to the Niger Delta people. It called on President Buhari not to give assent to the bill, insisting it is unacceptable to the Niger Delta people.
The group also rejected the 30% of NNPC profit for oil exploration and exploitation in frontier basins.
Unless all these anomalies are redressed including the issue of gas flaring in these host communities which according to them has constituted serious health hazard to the people, the commencement of the rehabilitation of the East West Road (death trap), they would be compelled to irresistibly embark on civil action without further reminder or extension of time after 14 days.
