Renowned Warri based constitutional lawyer and scion of the Odje dynasty, Dr. Akpo Mudiaga Odje has called for tighter laws against divesting of interest by multinational oil companies operating in the Niger Delta if the dream of developing the region is to be realized.
Dr. Odje who was speaking against the backdrop of alleged plans by Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC to divest its interest in the Niger Delta to another company, tasked government to “ensure that the new arrangement does not extend the paradox of marginalization and underdevelopment” of the region and her host communities.
The legal practitioner who made the declaration as part of a lecture he delivered during a recent oil and gas stakeholders’ conference, tasked Niger Delta leaders to muster the necessary political will to do the needful in ensuring that not only the nation state, but the host communities are adequately protected in any contract entered with the multinational oil companies.
The full text of the lecture which was made available exclusively to Fresh Angle, also advised the divesting and incoming oil companies not to employ the use of force by security agents like police and soldiers to intimidate the host communities to surrender their rights to be protected, but to look at dispute avoidance in the relationship with the host communities.
The Niger Delta activist faulted the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Contract Development Act 2010 loosely referred to as Local Content Law for failing to direct all multinational oil companies to relocate all their headquarters to their areas of operations.
He revealed that the multinational oil companies have refused to pay the 3% annual budgetary contribution to the NDDC as provided for by the NDDC Act 2000, noting that the companies have only been paying 2% since the passage of the law, thus short-changing the people of the Niger Delta several billions of naira.
Copyright: Fresh Angle International (www.freshangleng.com)
ISSN 2354 - 4104
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