Nigerian soldiers invade Oceania communities in N'Delta, steal crude oil, residents cry out

The Oceania Communities in the Akuku-Toru local government area of Rivers State have called on the Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo to stop the Nigerian Military from all acts of oil bunkering activities within their communities and focus more on their constitutional and legitimate duties.The Communities disclosed this in a speech delivered by His Royal Highness, Hope Opusinji on behalf of the Oceania Communities at Government House in Port Harcourt during the visit of the Vice-President as part of his Niger Delta tour to bring peace to the region.

The Oceania Communities, Opusinji said, are nonpartisan political umbrella, constituting the 14 communities in Kula, Soku, Idama Abisse and Elem-Sangana, making ward 15, 16, and 17 of the LGA, and characteristically riverine and uniquely oil and gas producing.

He said the communities has the same history of economic, social and Political infrastructure breakdown crisis, consciously and unconsciously imposed by government and operating companies and their activities, for almost six decades.

According to Osinbajo, “The Nigerian Military should be clearly directed to treat traditional rulers of our communities with maximum respect as it is in Northern and Western Nigeria. The Military should be instructed to also protect host communities against several external attacks. Several of our daughters have kids for soldiers of unknown identity. Soldiers deployed to these facilities only secure the facility they were deployed, but, refused to secure our communities when attacked by sea pirates and hostage takers. Soldiers are the real oil bunkers in every community represented here can talk about . Soldiers deployed to these communities treat our traditional rulers like common criminals”.

He said unconscious to both past governments and operating companies in the Oceania communities, there is the rising of a new paradigm search for physiological needs, where youths from host communities and their alien acolytes both in the military and the business community engage in theft of crude oil and building local refineries, otherwise referred to as ‘kpofire” for partial refinement for condensate and high density AGO.

Opusinji maintained that the Multi-national operating companies in the Oceania communities are in search of a better ta relationship with the communities and gas acquired a new relationship of Corporate Social Responsibility, focusing on triple bottom line orientation whereby the companies attempt to account for the social and environmental components of their business operations , instead of the traditional focus on the economic interests of their shareholders.

While lamenting the injustice meted out to the Oceania Communities and the daily question surrounding the survival of his people, Opusinji said: “His Excellency, as a traditional ruler from this ailing region, who know how the local people feel, l make bold to say that, the physiological needs of the residents of the Oceania Communities will continue to drive youths into alternative and often unlawful means of survival , except a leader like you, will meaningfully engage, formally or informally, our communities as you are doing now to identify and implement actionable cues that can restore over 50 years of this carnage, mistrust and counter reality”.

Opusinji further decried a situation where the Oceania communities are without power from the national grid and called for quick response from the federal government.

He also urged operating companies to pay their outstanding and expired land leases to their host communities, while asking the Presidency to pressure the operating companies to decommission, recover lands where abandoned oil and gas facilities are sited, and hand over the same to host communities as required by the NNPC regulations.