PIA Implementation: Chevron should not comply with extant laws, NUPRC directives haphazardly - Alex Eyengho

Prominent filmmaker, media practitioner, and oil-rich Ugborodo community opinion leader, Comrade Alex Eyengho, has urged Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) not to implement the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), the accompanying Regulations made pursuant to the Act, and directives of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) haphazardly.

Comrade Eyengho made this statement earlier today in a chat with journalists in Warri, shortly after Chevron inaugurated the "Warri Kingdom Coastal Host Communities Development Trust (HCDT) Board of Trustees, even as he opined that Chevron was merely "picking and choosing what part of the extant laws of the PIA and the NUPRC directives to obey, when, where, and how."

Said Eyengho: "Yes, Chevron, during the said inauguration was said to have insisted on complying with the NUPRC directives on the name of the HCDT and membership expansion of the Board of Trustees (BoTs), I am of the opinion that this is akin to putting the cart before the horse. The issue of the name and membership expansion of the BoTs should have been done first before the inauguration today. Why the haste? I know that some people will throw up the cliche, 'better late than never.' For me, however, it is always better and safer to err only on the side of the law."

According to Comrade Eyengho, the Setlors, particularly Chevron  operating in Ugborodoland and in some other key neighbouring host communities, have not deemed it fit to implement the PIA in accordance with the extant laws and regulations. This, according to him, led to protests jointly carried out against Chevron and Shell Petroleum Development Company by Ugborodo, Deghele, and Ugboegungun communities up until the intervention of NUPRC. 

"At the end of the intervention, the NUPRC came out with a clear verdict that Chevron/SPDC, in consultation with the host communities, should adopt a suitable name for the HCDT, and that Chevron/SPDC, in consultation with the host communities, should expand the proposed membership of the HCDT Board of Trustees from five (5) to nine (9), even as the NUPRC gave a two weeks deadline, for the implementation of the verdict. The deadline expired since September 20, 2023, without Chevron in particular, making any move whatsoever to meet with the host communities in this regard, only to go ahead with today's inauguration. I don't think this is right," Comrade Eyengho stated.

×