By Chioma Onuegbu, UYO

Senator Christopher Ekpenyong representing Ikot Ekpene senatorial district in Akwa Ibom State has said it would be unfair for the Federal Government to relocate National Petroleum Investment Management Services, NAPIMS, to a state that is not in Niger Delta.

Ekpenyong, who spoke, yesterday, while reacting to Federal Government’s planned movement of the office of NAPIMS from Lagos to Abuja, lamented that it is only in Nigeria that oil extraction and producing companies don’t have their administrative headquarters in their host communities.

He, therefore, advised that if NAPIMS should be moved from Lagos, it should be relocated to one of the oil producing states of Niger Delta.

He expressed concern that the Federal Government over the decades has shown insensitivity towards the untold suffferings in the oil-producing communities of Niger Delta.

His words: “If the Federal Government relocates the office of  National Petroleum Investment Management Services to Abuja that would be so unfair to the people of the Niger Delta. For me such a decision is oppressive.

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“The Federal Government will be doing a disservice to the people by relocating the office to Abuja. If NAPIMS is leaving Lagos, the office should not be taken to Abuja; I will support that they should come down to any of the states in Niger Delta especially to Akwa Ibom State.

“In Akwa Ibom we have a 21-storey ultra-modern smart building built by the state government under Governor Udom Emmanuel, they should come and occupy a space there. Akwa Ibom is one of the major oil producing states in the region.”

“It is unfortunate and sad that among all Oil producing countries of the world, it is only in Nigeria that we don’t have administrative offices of oil extraction and producing companies in their operational bases”.

The former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State even pointed out that the claim in some quarters of the country that the crude oil found in the Niger Delta soil belongs to all Nigerians contributed to the long years of neglect and deprivation suffered by the region.

He, therefore, advocated for intensified calls for the proceeds from all solid minerals found in any part of the country to be brought into the government coffers and shared among all the entire country for fairness and justice.

Vanguard News Nigeria