If the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) disregards their recommendations, Ogoni natives in Rivers State have threatened to disrupt and legally oppose the plan to auction the $1 billion Oil Mining Lease (OML) 11 properties for only $250 million.
This came after the NPDC was ordered by the House of Representatives to postpone its intended action to sell OML 11. Under the auspices of the Ogoni Liberation Initiative (OLI), the people claimed that the upcoming secret auction violates Mohammed Ali-promise Zarah’s to the NPDC that the Ogoni people would be kept informed about OML 11 issues, given that they were directly impacted by the environmental pollution brought on by the operations of the asset’s operator, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).
The people insisted that such an asset should only be sold to those who could help the Ogoni people and understand their suffering, lamenting the fact that some people took the Ogoni people’s fight for granted.
The OML 11 was operated by the SPDC Joint Venture (JV), but Shell left Ogoniland in 1993 as a result of several demonstrations spearheaded by the late environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa against the company’s destructive operations that provided no benefits to the local population.
Dr. Douglas Fabeke, president of OLI, expressed sorrow over the NPDC’s proposal to sell off the OML 11 without taking into account the suffering of the local populace or the need for effective cleanup of oil-impacted sites in Ogoni or other unresolved situations.
According to Fabeke, the NPDC has completed the sale of OML 11 to Sahara Energy and Shell. He urged businesses who were fighting for the license without having sufficient discussions with the indigenous people to stop doing so since it might make it harder for them to continue operating. If the NPDC needs money to fund the development of Ogoniland, he announced his willingness to pay $1.5 billion for the OML 11 license.
According to Fabeke Douglas, his organization, the “Ogoni Liberation Initiative,” has the necessary local and global resources to defend the rights of the populace.
He thanked the House of Representatives for ordering NPDC to postpone its intention to auction the asset and said, “The Ogoni station will give the forensic report on the Ogoni clean-up on January 4, 2023, which was another Ogoni day. The research reveals how the cleanup effort was turned into a political endeavor, how billions of naira were siphoned off of it, and how the contract was given to unqualified firms and fictitious towns.
