By Emma Arubi

For some time now, Delta State government only had special assistants on oil and gas but recently a new ministry was created for oil and gas. The man in charge, Mr. Omamofe Pirah, has engaged himself to create wealth, build capacity and make the ministry relevant to the oil bearing communities and the state mainly through job creation.

At different fora, he has taken time to exonerate the state government from alleged complicity in an alleged murder case over which he and others have been discharged and acquitted by the court.

In this interview, Pirah says “my experience as the Executive Chairman of a Chevron committee has put me in a better position to tackle oil and gas matters effectively for the benefit of our deprived communities and people.” Excerpts:

Before your appointment as a commissioner you were holding an office created by Chevron. Can you tell us what that office entails?

I was Chairman, Itsekiri Regional Development Committee, IRDC. It is an outfit created by Chevron to look at the infrastructural problems confronting oil producing communities around their areas of operation. IRDC is made up of 23 Itsekiri communities; we have about five major oil fields and all it takes is that Chevron contributes money yearly for projects for these communities.

Chevron also looks at how all these people around their operation could get contracts and employment. So, precisely, I was holding for Itsekiri people a trust fund to help them get projects that have been identified by the communities themselves, executed and used by the communities.

I was in that office for over five years before I came into government. And what we have done so far from where we took over after the crisis between the Itsekiri and the Ijaw, what the people actually wanted then was to return to their communities.

And we went into building houses in the communities and granting micro-credit facilities to women to return to their normal occupations, fishing and trading. That we did and we are still doing and for these, our office has been able to manage over N2billion for the Itsekiri people.

And I can proudly tell you that up till today the Itsekiri communities that I am leading do not want me to leave the office for now because what we were practising back there is that the projects are identified, executed by the people themselves following due process. Gone are those days when Chevron disburses funds to the communities and what you hear later is that their leaders have embezzled same or ran away with the money.

August 10 was our annual general meeting day when I rendered account of my stewardship for over three years, the funds that have passed through my office for development projects for Itsekiri people and I fervently believe that my antecedents and track records of performance have placed me in good stead to spur the Delta State Government under the able leadership of Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan to bring me on board to help galvanize the state to key into what he is doing to achieve his three-point agenda. I have been a community developer, I create wealth and capacity.

This means a vast experience in the oil and gas sector and how does it impact on the people?

Every day in life is a learning process. We have learned so much from our background and I think we understand the intricacies of the communities, vis-à-vis the oil companies.

If the oil firms sneeze, we can read why they are sneezing in any direction. And the questions we ask them now are more mature than the questions we used to ask them. For instance, now we ask them for our legitimate rights, privileges and employment slots as stated by the laws of this country.

In those days, they do not ask you, they just throw three or four useless job slots to you and bring people from nowhere to fill all other lucrative and powerful positions in the company right in your backyard, while you have equally qualified graduates from your communities to fill such vacant positions.

It is very annoying and oppressive to say the least. But, now, we tell you, ‘no, this is not acceptable to us’. The law specifies what should be done in all cases. So that is where we are and we have learned a lot more and are ready deploy these experiences for the benefit of our people and the state.

What is the history of your office and its functions?

There was an SA during Governor James Ibori regime, SA on Oil and Gas. Engr. Akperi was the SA and, when he left in 2007, Governor Uduaghan appointed another SA, Mr David Ekereokosu. The guy managed that office until the tail end of the last administration.

What this office does is to mediate between host communities and the oil companies and to make sure that the oil companies have a good working environment to operate so that oil and gas activities are not disrupted. But now that we have come in, we want to move it further and better than how we met it. How do we move it and key into the three-point agenda of the governor?

We all know that the issue of oil and gas is on the reserved list of the Federal Government. However, we are working on two documents right now – the Local Content Act and the Federal Ministry of Labour Law.

When I came in, I decided to look at what is on ground. Government has set up a committee before to advise on how they can create wealth from oil and gas.

Now let me take you to one singular thing that is happening. The EGTL project in Escravos, which I am very familiar with, where we have close to 7,000 indigenes working presently, that project will wind down before the end of next year and if those 7,000 indigenes return to the society and jobless, where will we find ourselves after one year again? There will be rampant cases of kidnapping, piracy, robbery and social vices. So, when these people I have put together come up with their road map to success, I am going to sit down with the committee that government has set up before to say ‘where are you and what were the things you have on ground? This is your thinking and this is my position, we marry them together and we present it to government.’

There were reports that you were involved in the murder of one Mr. Metsagharun of Ugorodo and the state the government is being put in bad light over your appointment

I have spoken before on this matter and what I normally say is that I do not want to bring this thing to public domain. It is so unfortunate that some people are trying to indict Delta State government. Delta government did not go to court. When that matter happened and Mr. Metseaghanrun, who happened to be my second cousin, died as a result of community crisis, about 36 persons were charged to court initially, 25 of them or thereabouts were discharged and eleven of us stood trial for nine years. When the case came to an end, all of us were discharged and acquitted.

In 2007, some family members pressurised Delta State government that they wanted to appeal the case. Government will not say do not go and appeal, government filed in papers of appeal and that is where government stopped. The family members went further to get for themselves a private lawyer, a private prosecutor in Benin who got a fiat and since 2007 they have not moved forward on the matter again.

Delta government did not go to court and it is patently wrong for anyone to say the state government is using tax payer’s money to go to court. They have not spent a dime and to accuse the state government of using state funds or tax payer’s money to pay my salary is rather unfortunate and wicked.

I have about 25 text messages on my phone calling me all sorts of names. There are two recent texts that appealed to me from the same people to say, ‘sorry, we need to settle’. If that is the case, one should have thought a better way of doing this thing is by saying they were broke and all of that.

It is so unfortunate to drag the name of the state governor into this matter. I am involved, so I will not be saying a lot of things, but I know that once you are discharged and acquitted of any offence, you are free to do any legitimate business. I did not sit down anywhere to ask that I should be called upon. I have held as a trustee on behalf of the Itsekiri people over 2-3 billion naira for their development.

I have not tampered with a dime, it is based on my track records that the state government felt that they need people of our calibre to come on board.

What are the challenges of your job?

The challenges that I think will come up is that my dream of what I hope to achieve is that with the local content law and labour laws not standing as so much impediments, we could have a bye law to regulate the activities of oil companies.

If the Federal Government says you are not supposed to bring XY expatriate into this country and you bring more than that, there will be trouble for you. Similarly, I should be able to know the kind of qualifications these so-called expatriates possess. If they are not the right ones they should be sent packing. Those are some of the challenges I think will arise.