By Neville Amorighoye
Warri—Delta State Commissioner for Oil and Gas, Mr. Mofe Pirah, has appealed to stakeholders in Ugborodo community of the state to give peace a chance. He said: “Nothing can be achieved by fighting in Ugborodo community, rather aggrieved parties should sit together at a roundtable and proffer solution to the problem in Ugborodo.”

It will be recalled that in the past two weeks, Ugbo-rodo, the richest oil and gas producing community in Delta State, had been em-broiled in power tussle over who leads the new executive in the community.

There had been allegations and counter allegations by the aggrieved parties in the community that some officials of Chevron Nigeria Limited and their collaborators in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, were encouraging the crisis in the community for their selfish interests.

One of the issues that came to light in the press war by aggrieved parties was the catering contract of the multi-billion naira Escravous Gas to Liquid, EGTL, Project by Chevron.

Parties are divided on the issue, as a section argued on that the Local Content Act of the Federal Government in the oil and gas sector had not been properly handled in Ugborodo, while the other group wants the status quo maintained in the EGTL catering contract since some Ugborodo indigenes are part of the supply chain as sub-contractors.

Following failure to agree on the issue, aggrieved parties had shut EGTL construction site for the past two days, delaying the project that was expected to take-off on October 1.

It was in view of these that Mr. Pirah called on stakeholders to reconsider their stand on the vexed issue of catering contract and other related issues to give peace a chance in the community.

He said: “In my capacity as government representative in oil and gas, I enjoin our leaders and stakeholders to give peace a chance in Ugborodo. Delta State Government is looking into this matter and all peaceful avenues are been explored to resolve the issues in Ugborodo.”