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A pan Ndokwa Socio-political pressure group, Organised Ndokwa Effort, ONE, has in very strong terms rejected the allocation of 3% to oil and gas bearing communities in the recently passed Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB by the National Assembly saying, the people of Ndokwa nation will not accept anything less than 10% noting, that the host communities are the ones bearing the brunt of oil exploration directly and that compensation should be commensurate with the adverse effects.

This was made known in a communique signed by the duo of the Chairman and Coordinator: Okei Ossai Udom and Svt.

Rodney Odibe Odili-Obi respectively, issued at the end of a well-attended meeting of the leadership and members of the group including critical stakeholders in the Ndokwa project at the Ndokwa House, Abuja, Thursday.

The statement commended President Muhammadu Buhari, on his efforts towards building a new Nigeria in his “visionary leadership” geared towards granting financial autonomy for the Judiciary and also an independent Local Government administration in the country a development the group maintained will breed growth, accountability, responsibility and massive human and material development to the grassroot.

However, the group laments the insecurity of lives and properties in the country stressing that the president should up his game to protect Nigerians noting that, that is one of the major social contracts binding the citizens and government.

The group averred that: the Petroleum Industry Bill as recently passed by the legislature is unsatisfactory, just as the overstretched insecurity and perceived widespread injustice, has resulted in a public outcry for a national consensual constitution and based on the mantra of ‘Ndokwa First’ the group noted that, crude oil was discovered in their land in 1962 while its production started in 1965 saying, the future of Nigeria’s economy depends on the enormous Natural Gas resource production across the Ndokwa land which group said, has more than 10Trillion cubic feet making Ndokwa land the single largest deposit of Natural Gas concentrate in the entire West African sub-region that can support major IPP and LNG projects, and host many critical infrastructures, especially in relation to the supply of Gas to the various multimillion US Dollar Gas Pipeline projects.

“Ndokwa creeks, lowland and upland areas have a cumulative Oil production capacity of over 380 million Stock Tank Barrels (STB). The potential Crude Oil production across the Ndokwa land is 150,000 barrels per day (bpd). The contributors to this production quantum include Kwale 75,000 bpd, Afor-Obetim (10,000 bpd), Okpai (10,000 bpd), Aboh/Abalagana (10,000 bpd), Emu/Obodougwa (6,000bpd), Ebedei/Umutu (5,000 bpd), Onitcha Ukwuani (2,000 bpd), with additional 35,700bpd production locked in, due to OPEC restriction, Downhole mechanical problems requiring work-overs amongst others.”

The statement reads in part: That, the people of Ndokwa land had suffered and are still suffering without end, the hazards of the operations of Shell, NAOC, Total, Seplat, Platform Petroleum, Midwestern Oil and Gas, Energia, Chorus Energy, Sterling Global and Pillar Oil dating back to 1965.

ONE stressed further that: “for the avoidance of doubts, we state unequivocally without fear or trepidation our stand against the recommendation of PIB paltry 3% opex to the host communities because it is grossly insufficient to attenuate the sufferings of our people, and compensate the damage to our environment.

“We demand nothing less than 10% and thus call on the National Assembly Conference of Committees to retract and revise the rate from 3% to 10%. First, to qualify as a Host Community, the subsurface below such a community must geologically bear oil and gas. No more no less.

Drilling the several kilometres deep boreholes to produce the oil and gas to the surface comes with a high risk of blow out/fire, spillage, pollution, environmental degradation, land subsidence, strange ailment, increase in radioactivity and heavy metals in fishes, soils, streams, waters leading to low agricultural productivity and poverty.

“The oil-producing communities trust fund, therefore, is justified for a share of profit or production in order to ameliorate the hardship imposed on the dwellers around the oil wells and production facilities.

We are also opposed to dedicating a whopping 30% from NNPC operation to explore for oil and gas at all costs in the Northern basins.

“Alternatively, the eight Basins of Chad, Gongola, Anambra, Sokoto, Dahomey, Bida and Benue Trough and Niger Delta Deep each is allocated 5% of the Profit for equity, making a total of 40% for a period of 7years. Exploration is a phase. This allocation cannot be forever. It has to be time-bound.

The enumerated pipeline route communities should in line with international best practices be adequately accommodated as Right of Way (RoW) compensations.

“Similarly, the traffic of Genco power and other commodities from the North to Southern destinations does not in any way make States on the traffic routes to be co-host communities.

On no account should the same pipeline route communities in Northern states transform by fiat to oil-bearing communities in order to take advantage of the Niger Delta?

Our experience since 1960 has been regrettable. Our economic resources have been hugely exploited, yet our people and environment have largely been without benefits.” The group stated in the presence of the mammoth crowd of Ndokwa people.

Pointedly, the Udom and Odili-Obi – led a group called on the President to consider Ndokwa nation in the constitution of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC board, in the appointment of federal ministers, heads of parastatals and agencies to give the Ndokwa man a sense of belonging and to also awake his national solidarity noting that: “the marginalisation of Ndokwa nation must stop.”