The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) has described as unacceptable the judgment of a Federal High Court in Abuja which ordered the Federal Government to renew the operating license of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) on OML 11.
MOSOP in a statement signed by its Spokesman/Publicity Secretary, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface said with the judgment, it perceived that the Dutch oil giant which was declared persona non grata in Ogoniland in 1993 over its atrocities and related issues intends to walk majestically back to Ogoni for oil mining when the issues for which they were ousted have not been addressed.
“We wonder why the Ogoni people were not consulted or joined in a case that its decision would affect them and why the court now wants Ogoni to clap hands for the court and welcome Shell back to Ogoniland.
MOSOP wishes to call on the federal government, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, President Mohammadu Buhari and the Minister of State, Timipre Silver to as a matter of responsibility over security concerns that made it not renew Shell’s license in the area to without delay appeal the said judgment to an appellate court and get the order upturned as Ogoni people cannot welcome a company that colluded with the then military government and contributed to the wiping out of its generation of leaders and over 2,000 other Ogoni people back to the area”, the group said.
It maintained that Shell remained persona non grata in Ogoniland and that Ogoni people cannot sit and watch the resumption of oil mining in Ogoniland for the next 20 years in the face of the injustices and dirty footprints that Shell left behind in the 1990s yet to be addressed.
“We call on all the ethnic minorities in the Niger Delta, Nigeria and the international community to peacefully and nonviolently stand with the Ogoni people in the face of this new challenge over a court order for Shell to return to Ogoniland with the consent or involvement of the Ogoni people”, MOSOP declared.
