By Elizabeth Uwandu
WARRI—PEOPLE of Ureju Community in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State have accused Chevron Nigeria Limited  of using Itsekiri Regional Development Committee, IRDC, one of its eight GMoU Models to oppress its host communities, alleging that the company “engineered” the leadership crisis in IRDC which has culminated in an on-going litigation.

Chairman of Ureju community, Mr. Tonwe Henry, in a statement in Warri, said that the people of Itsekiri host communities such as Ureju “should not be allowed to suffer untold hardship due to no fault of ours.”

Noting that Ureju as a major oil producing community under Chevron’s Dibi Field deserves a “better environment equipped with life enhancing facilities,” compared to what obtains in Chevron staff quarters, Tonwe enjoined Chevron to channel “all correspondences and activities hitherto handled by IRDC through the Olu of Warri to ensure even distribution.”

He said that IOCs such as Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, Mobil, Agip and NLNG have relocated their operational headquarters to their major areas of operations and tasked Chevron to follow suit.

The Itsekiri community leader called for a review of Chevron’s education policy, saying that the N20,000 and N75,000 presently paid by the company as fees for secondary and tertiary students annually was unrealistic and unjustifiable based on current economic realities.