Koroama community, host to Shell Petroleum Development Company’s
Gbarain-Ubie Integrated Gas Plant in Bayelsa State, has shut operations
at the gas field.
The community carried out the action as a protest to demand power
supply from the power plant component of the facility for its people.
Scores of youths, women, and elders of the community blocked the
access road to the facility and suspended ongoing work at the gas plant
in the community.
Paramount Ruler of Koroama, in Yenagoa, Local Government Area, Chief
Sabu Martins, who addressed the aggrieved members of his community,
urged them to remain resolute until their objectives were realised.
The monarch lamented that the community endowed with oil and gas
suffered the adverse impact of gas flares and deserved supply of
electricity generated with gas from the area to ameliorate their
sufferings.
He noted that that the protest had been ongoing for the past three
weeks and resulted in forcing contractors to vacate the community until
the oil firm gave a commitment to provide electricity to the them.
Martins
said, “Today, my people and I are protesting to SPDC and to the Federal
Government. Koroama is a host community and has the largest proved gas
and oil reserve in the entire Shell operations in this area.
“We have agreed that we could die here if light, the only demand we
make is not given to us. Then Shell will never operate on our land, we
have given them time to remove their things, we want the government to
intervene.”
Also addressing the protesting members of Koroama community, Miss
Ankio Briggs, a community rights activist, noted that the demands of the
people who host the gas plant was modest.
Briggs said, “What I have heard them say today is not different from
what has been said for a very long time, what they are demanding is in
line with what Adaka Boro demanded.
“This story about host communities who I call the owners of the
resources, it is about self determination, it is about corporate social
responsibility, the demand is just and right.
“I call on the Government of Bayelsa, Federal Government and Shell to
look into the demand, although it is not the duty of Shell to provide
electricity to Nigerians but it is a social and moral obligation to
their hosts.”
Spokesman for Shell, Joseph Obari, in a reaction, said that the oil
firm had difficulties meeting the demands of electricity to its gas
plant host communities due to limited capacity.
He said, “The Bayelsa State Government is leading discussions with
Koroama community to end the blockade of SPDC project sites in the area.
“The community commenced the blockade about three weeks ago to press
their demand for free and uninterrupted power supply to the community
from SPDC’s gas plant in the area.
“The Gbaran-Ubie Integrated Oil and Gas Plant supplies back-up power
to two neighbouring communities under an agreement entered into with
host communities in 2006, during the project conception stage.
“Due to limitation imposed by the power capacity of the plant, it
has been unable to accommodate other communities’ requests to tie into
the power system.”
Obari added that SPDC had progressively fulfilled agreed sustainable
community development projects in the community under the Global
Memorandum of Understanding.
For example, he said in 2014 alone, projects worth over N100m were
completed in the Gbarain/Ekpetiama cluster which covers Koroama.
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