Former Minister of Police Affairs and prominent South-South leader, Alaowei Broderick Bozimo, has advocated a halt to alleged lopsided allocation of oil blocks by the Federal Government to a section of the country to the detriment of oil-bearing communities in Niger-Delta, saying, “it cannot be tolerated for much longer.”
The former minister, who described the act as “blatant and glaring injustice” urged the federal government to “grant oil blocks to host communities to engender among them a sense of fairness.”
Bozimo made the call in goodwill message to the people of Kula Kingdom in Rivers State and Minister of State (Petroleum), Chief Timipre Sylva, for the peaceful resolution of protracted dispute and resumption of oil exploration activities at OML 25.
He said, “The relevance of oil as Nigeria’s main economic stay is imminently questionable, therefore, before the bubble finally bursts and the Niger Delta is irretrievably left polluted and desolate, steps should be taken now to save the region.”
Commending the Kula community for the newfound peace, he said, “The template adopted in OML 25 by the government should be replicated in the very many potentially explosive communities of the oil and gas bearing communities in the Niger Delta.”
“Oil and gas exploring multinationals should move away from the antiquated and colonial mentality of seeing themselves and host communities as ‘them’ and ‘us’, thereby resulting in discriminatory practices against the host communities,” he asserted,
The elder statesman noted, “It has been 24 months when the gallant women and youths of Kula kingdom in a peaceful protest seized and occupied the flow station and platform of OML 25. The peace that has now been brokered between the oil companies, communities and stakeholders demonstrates that such disputes can be amicably resolved without resort to violence.”
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