The Urhobo people of Niger Delta, under the aegis of Campaign for the Economic Survival of Urhobo Nation, CATESUN on Thursday said it is set to shut down all oil facilities of multinational oil companies operating in their land as the fourteen-day ultimatum handed down the Federal Government expires.
The group’s President, Olorogun Ese Kakor said the Federal Government failed to meet up with their demands before the ultimatum expired last Monday.
The group had earlier handed down a 14 days ultimatum, threatening to shut down oil and gas operations in their area if the Federal Government fails to initiate a fresh process of ceding out the 57 marginal oil fields and address issues of gross marginalization by multinationals.
Olorogun Okakor said their call for a fresh ceding process of the 57 Marginal Oil Field was necessitated by illegal moves by the Minister for State for Petroleum Resources, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and the Director-General of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR to exclude Urhobo people from the process.
CATESUN appealed to President Buhari in the statement to call his officers in the oil and gas industry to order as they are the architects of the potentially combustive situation, which has the capacity to set the entire Niger Delta on fire again.
It emphasized that a new process will give competent Urhobo men and women the opportunity to participate in oil and gas activities fairly, having “endured injustice, since the discovery of crude oil in their lands.
Others who spoke lamented that the Urhobo nation is host to several oil and gas facilities, including the multi-billion dollars Utorogu Gas Plant, reportedly the biggest in Africa, yet it lacks Federal Government’s presence.
“We are not going back on our threat to shut down operations of International Oil Companies in Urhobo nation, enough of the marginalization”.
