Community accuses oil firm of instigating violence in Delta

By Emma Amaize

WARRI—ODIMODI community in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State has alerted Delta State Security Council, DSSC, of imminent threat to the peace between the community and Ogulagha in the state, allegedly instigated by an oil company and other interested parties.

In a letter, dated November 9, addressed to the chairman, DSSC, chairman of Odimodi community, Chief Sunny Gbeya, said Nigerian Agip Oil Company, NAOC, was causing unnecessary conflict between the two communities over the recent oil spillage from its Beniboye flow line.

He said the oil company was, by its action, working against the resolutions of Delta State Security Council and  Delta State House of Assembly reached in 2004 and 2007 in respect of NAOC’s oil spills at Beniboye, and peace accord brokered 10 years ago between the communities by elder statesman and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark.

In a similar letter, also sent to the Officer in-Charge, OIC, Nigeria Navy, Forcados Terminal, the community said Agip zonal head of National Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, the army officer in charge of Forcados Area and Ogulagha community were deliberately provoking the people on the October 23 oil spill from the flow line.

He said the spill grossly polluted Odimodi communities, which promptly informed NOSDRA, but in breach of existing resolutions, the military provided gunboats for NAOC and representatives of NOSDRA and Ogulagha to purportedly carry out a visit to the spill site, to the exclusion of Odimodi.