Rep member bemoans NNPC position on Amnesty’s report

WARRI—THE reported view of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on the recent reports of Amnesty International  on Nigeria has been described as extremely provocative, callous and strewed with falsehood of no mean proportion, by Daniel Reyenieju, representing Warri Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives.

Speaking to our correspondent at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport  yesterday in  his reaction to the statement credited to the NNPC spokesman, Levi Ajuonnoma, who was reported to have said in reaction to the amnesty report that “it was local communities that caused much of the environmental damage by vandalising pipelines for monetary gains.”  ( The Nation, Thursday, July 2, 2009), Mr. Reyenieju said the degree of insensibility usually displayed by officials of the NNPC on disasters arising from oil related activities has assumed a dimension of extreme insensitivity and wickedness.

According to the lawmaker, “it is a clear fact that most of the pipelines  currently in use in the oil bearing areas have been there for over 40 years with the implications that corrosion and stress have taken their tolls on them and this usually cause oil spills, and not necessarily the results of human activities.”

Reyenieju said that the recent spill in Ijala, near Warri, arising from the marine accident which involved an oil tanker, J. S. Amazing which has devastated the area cannot in anyway be attributed to pipeline vandalism.

Recalling the 2007 spill at Ubeji near Warri which resulted from collapse tank-roof,  and the current dumping site of oil waste used by NNPC, the lawmaker queried if the NNPC could feign ignorant of the role of officials.

According to Reyenieju, the usual arrogant attitude of NNPC officials in responding to the victims of oil spills is a precipitate of their usual pre-conceive belief that people of oil bearing communities cause pipeline vandalisation for monetary gains.

He called on NNPC officials to avoid what he described as “their usual pompous posturing and use of vituperative languages against victims of entrenched injustice and exploitations.”