URGENT NEED TO GUIDE AGAINST THE APPARENT SUBTERFUGE AIMED AT EXPROPRIATING HOST COMMUNITIES AND BY EXTENSION, THE NIGER DELTA PEOPLE FROM THE MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR BONGA SOUTH WEST / APARO PROJECT, BSWA

Coastal Stakeholders’ Forum, CSF

Email: kesvent@gmail.com, kesvent@yahoo.com

Address: 

Edah Quarters, Madangho

Warri South-West LGA

Delta State.

  GSM: 08064917181

May 27, 2019

The President,

Federal Republic of Nigeria

Muhammadu Buhari                           

Aso Villa, Abuja                                        

Your Excellency,                                  

URGENT NEED TO GUIDE AGAINST THE APPARENT SUBTERFUGE AIMED AT EXPROPRIATING HOST COMMUNITIES AND BY EXTENSION, THE NIGER DELTA PEOPLE FROM THE MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR BONGA SOUTH WEST / APARO PROJECT, BSWA

 We are not insensitive to the enormous challenges before your esteemed office Sir, particularly as you prepare the ground for a smooth transition to a second term, in which your administration intends to consolidate on the gains of the foundation you already laid for a truly infrastructural and socio-economically developing country, thanks to genuine efforts to diversify our economy.

BACKGROUND:

Sir, it will interest you to know that the existing Bonga Field, operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC is contiguous to people living in the coastal communities and part of the urban of Warri South Local Government Area in Delta State and crude oil exploration activities by the company, have been peaceful despite our legitimate frustration, due to several years of marginalization.                                        

Whilst we have painfully stomached the avoidable and unconstitutional marginalization of our people by SPDC over the years, as a result of our peaceful and law abiding disposition, we are constrained to state strongly that the ongoing subterfuge to expropriate the host communities and by extension the Niger Delta people from the multi- billion dollar Bonga South West / Aparo Project, BSWA, to be operated by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, SNEPCO, with Production Sharing Agreement, PSA with the Federal Government ( NNPC) will not be accepted.

ISSUES                                       

·         SPDC has multi-billion naira lay fallow facilities in Warri Urban, which can readily serve as Standard Logistics Base for the Bonga South West / Aparo Project. It therefore beats our imagination how SNEPCO, a Deepwater firm of Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, would phantom the thought of continuing such brazen wastage, by situating the logistic base for Bonga South West/Aparo Project outside Delta State for no justifiable reason, instead of prioritizing the overall economic interest of the country and sustain the prevailing peace in the Niger Delta.

Should there be overflow of the SPDC facilities in Warri, the Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA Warri, would serve as extension. This is vitally important, considering the fact that your administration recently concessioned the Delta Port, Warri, after successfully spending billions of naira to execute the first phase of the dredging of Warri Port/ Escravos Bar.

The surreptitious moves to situate the BSWA Logistics Base outside the existing SPDC facilities in the Oil City, negates the basic economic principle of situating industries to nearness of raw materials as well as manpower. It would also reignite youth restiveness in Delta State and Niger Delta at large.

The model Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL, adopted in the peak of youth unrest in the Niger Delta, during the construction stage of the Escravos Gas-To-Liquid Project, EGTL, wherein the company operated its logistics base in Warri South-West coastline and NPA-Warri, is a classified example of cost effectiveness, engagement of the locals in tandem with the Nigerian Content Act and robust capacity building, which quelled crisis in the region.  

·            We have it on good record that development stage of the Bonga South West / Aparo Project, will engage over 10,000 workers. Common sense tells us that situating the Logistics Base of Bonga South West / Aparo Project between the world class decaying facilities of SPDC in Warri and Delta Port, Warri, would not just help to stop crude oil theft, but ultimately enhance industrialization of the Niger Delta, with its attendant positive effect on your administration's diversification drive, as agro-allied firms would naturally spring up in the region.                                           

GOING FORWARD:

Mr. President, in as much as we join other well- meaning Nigerians to celebrate the multi-billion dollar Deepwater project, expected to add 225,000 barrels of crude oil to Nigeria's daily production by the year 2022, we passionately plead that you use your good offices as President and Commander -In-Chief of The Federal Republic of Nigeria as well as Supervising Minister of Petroleum Resources, to direct SNEPCO and other critical investors / stakeholders to ensure that the logistics base of the Bonga South West / Aparo Project is operated in the expansive SPDC facilities in Warri, the commercial nerve centre of Delta State.

We want to use this opportunity, to call on Delta State Government to play a lead role in ensuring that Delta State host the Bonga South West / Aparo Project Logistics Base, because apart from the large number of jobs that would be created, the Internal Generated Revenue, IGR profile of the state would be greatly enhanced.  

We humbly look forward to your prompt and positive response Sir.                                  

_______________________                                                  

Erefoluwa Keka                                                                   

      Chairman                       

_______________________

Misan Ogbegbe                                                      

Secretary

×