Youths disagree with PINL’s comments on oil revenue losses

Ogoni Youth Development Initiative (OYDI) has disagreed with the comments credited to Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (PINL) on losses incurred by the Federal Government following non- operationalisation of the oil facilities in OML 11 in Ogoniland.

PINL, a surveillance company in charge of Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) reportedly spoke during a meeting with stakeholders from pipeline host communities in Rivers State.

The company said the Federal Government was losing about $226billion annually due to the shutting down of wells in Ogoniland.

Reacting to the statement, the Global President of PINL, Imeabe Oscar, said the company should be more concerned about the welfare of the people than oil revenue.

He said Ogoniland had yet to get any tangible benefit from the previous exploration activities by the former Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), which had been bought over by Renaissance Energy Africa.

Oscar insisted that such statement was capable of causing crisis between Ogoni people and other ethnic groups.

He said the area was yet to recover from the loss of some of its prominent leaders, including Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight other Ogoni brothers, who were murdered for protecting Ogoni oil.

He urged PINL to tender an apology over the remarks, saying such comment was not fair to the people of the area.

Oscar said: “PINL should apologise to the people of Ogoni. First, for not being concerned about the people or the thousands of people that lost their lives in Ogoni as a result of this Ogoni oil.

“For 50 years that Shell operated in Ogoni land, there was nothing to show to the Ogoni people for the mineral resources that were taken from them by the Federal Government, especially from a multinational oil company like Shell.

“There was no impact. Even as we speak, there is no milestone achievement as what an oil multinational company operating in the land that’s as commensurate with what they were taking.”

Oscar advised the company to put a human face to its operations in Ogoniland by engaging Ogoni youths and women in jobs, skills acquisition and other welfare packages .

He said: “PINL should be more concerned about persuading the government to treat Ogoni people fairly by compensating for the losses, creating job opportunities for youths and women and carrying out welfare packages to better the lots of the people and make up for the losses incurred as a result of oil pollution on their land before talking about resumption of oil exploration or calculating losses by the Federal Government because there is no greater loss than the loss of human lives.”