Group advocates oil block licences for Niger Deltans

A gaggle underneath the aegis of the Niger Delta Group Youths Affiliation based mostly in Bayelsa, Akwa-Ibom, Edo, Rivers, Cross-River, Delta, Imo, Abia, and Ondo States, has expressed robust objection to the latest allocation of oil block licences to company entities and people who should not indigenes of the Niger Delta.

This was in response to the latest award of oil blocs to winners within the 2024 licensing bid spherical by the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Fee.

This place is in tandem with a petition addressed to the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, by means of a lawyer, Blessing Agbomhere of Blessing Agbomhere and Companions, a authorized counsel to some aggrieved Niger Delta traders, who’re demanding a direct reversal of the 2022/23 mini bid spherical and 2024 licensing spherical for oil blocs within the Niger Delta area.

The Niger Delta group youths who’re main protests in Yenagoa, Uyo, Benin-Metropolis, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Warri, Owerri, Umuahia, Akure, and Abuja are calling for a recent licensing bid that will make sure that 40 per cent of Nigeria’s oil blocks are allotted to traders which might be indigenous to the Niger Delta area.

A press release collectively signed by the youth chief of the affiliation, Mr. Embale Jonathan; his deputy, Hon. Omeizah Ogumah; the PRO, Boma Doreye; and ex-officio, Sunny Ifijen, asserted that it’s unacceptable that their ancestral lands, which have been ravaged and degraded by oil exploration, are being handed over to outsiders.

It learn in elements, “The latest barefaced demeaning sample of allocating oil-prospecting licenses to non-Niger-Delta pursuits is an unacceptable, unjustifiable, and anti-developmental pattern of a high-wired plot towards the individuals of Niger Delta.

“The motion of the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Fee is deviant to the intent and spirit of the 2021 Petroleum Business Act, which recognises indigenous pursuits within the oil and gasoline business. Therefore, such non-inclusion of indigenous pursuits indicators exclusion and non-transparency that will probably be counter-productive for the oil and gasoline business and your complete nation.”

“As indigenous individuals of the Niger Delta area, we’ve got been traditionally marginalised, exploited, and excluded by the oil and gasoline business. Our communities have suffered environmental degradation, air pollution, and well being hazards as a result of actions of oil and gasoline corporations. But, we obtain a pittance in advantages from each the federal government and inside oil corporations.”

The group issued a three-point demand that features: “Rapid evaluate of the oil-prospecting licenses to mirror a minimum of 40 per cent of the variety of oil blocks for indigenes of the Niger Delta; a evaluate of the dedication of oil bloc homeowners to environmental remediation of polluted waters and lands and supply compensation to affected communities; an enforcement of compliance in company social accountability of licensed oil block homeowners, particularly in employment, coaching programmes, and help for native enterprise within the area.”

It urged the Senate and different mandatory businesses to take the calls for significantly and work in direction of a extra equitable and simply society for all Nigerians.

Saturday PidomNigeria recollects that the final bid spherical ended on December 18 when winners of the oil blocks emerged.

Within the remaining end result, SIFAX & RoyalGate Consortium gained PPL 300-DO; OceanGate Engineering Oil and Gasoline Ltd gained PPL 302-DO and PPL 3007; Homeland Built-in gained PPL 304-DO; Hakilat Oil & Gasoline Consortium Ltd defeated NNPC E&P to clinch PPL 305-DO; BISWAL Oil & Gasoline Ltd additionally defeated NNPC E&P to win PPL 306-DO.

After having a tie, MRS Oil & Gasoline later defeated NNPC E&P to win PPL 303-DO.

Equally, Petroli Power Advertising and marketing and Provide Ltd received PPL 269; Sahara Deepwater Sources Ltd gained each PPL 270 and PPL 271; Panout Oil & Gasoline beat TotalEnergies and three different bidders to safe PPL 300/301 CS. Panout additionally claimed PPL 3015.

In the identical vein, TotalEnergies E&P gained PPL 2000/2001.

As sole bidders, BISWAL gained PPL 2002; First E&P has PPL 2003 and PPL 2006; Deywayles Worldwide Restricted secured PPL 2004; Applefield Oil & Gasoline received PPL 2005; R28 Holdings Ltd gained PPL 2007 and PPL 3011; Tulcan Power E&P gained PPL 2008 and 3012; Broron Power secured PPL 2009; Hakilat Oil & Gasoline claimed PPL 3016; and Applefield Oil & Gasoline gained PPL 3017.

The NUPRC introduced that there could be one other bid spherical this yr.