WARRI—Nine communities in Delta State hosting the Amukpe-Escravos Pipeline Project, AEPP, have protested against their marginalisation in the award of the contract for the project.

The communities, in separate petitions to President Goodluck Jonathan,  Inspector-General of Police, and Minister of Petroleum Resources, alleged that the Joint Venture between  Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, and Pan Ocean Oil Corporation of Nigeria contravened the Local Content Policy of the Federal Government by the award of the contract for the pipeline project without the input of host communities.

According to the communities, the Joint Venture provisions on award of the contract was unacceptable to them.

The communities said: “We write to express our dismay over award of contract in oil and gas industry without first considering the host communities, despite the existence of the Local Content Policy and local companies with similar or better capabilities.

“We are concerned that the situation may degenerate with untold consequences if nothing urgent was done to arrest the situation as this part of the country is still recovering from a debilitating inter/intra ethnic struggles.

One of the signatories to the petition, representing Omadino Community, Mr. Austin Oniyesan, said:  “We are ready, in every form to tackle the matter. And I can assure you that without us in that project, the project will not have peace unless we are involved.

NNPC itself is the author of the Local Content Law and if we must comply with what the law says, the would-be contractors are supposed to be anchored with the host communities.”

Every community here has contractors and what the law says is that if the NNPC is proposing to go into a joint venture, the contractor presented by the NNPC is supposed to anchor with the contractors of the host communities It is not for the NNPC to impose anybody that they like on us. Unfortunately, NNPC running foul of this law for a very long time, but in this case, we will not allow the injustice to happen again,” he added.