Urhobo group threatens to implement shutdown order on oil industry operations

Following the expiration of its 14 days ultimatum on the Federal Government, the Campaign for the Economic Survival of Urhobo Nation (CATESUN), says it will execute it’s plan to shutdown the activities of oil and gas companies operating in Urhobo land.

The group disclosed this during a meeting on Thursday in Ovwian, Udu Local Government Area of Delta state.

President of the group, Olorogun Ese Kakor explained that the decision followed the failure of the government to meet its demands which expired last Monday.

The group had earlier handed down a 14-day ultimatum to shutdown oil and gas operations in their area if the Federal Government fails to initiate fresh process of ceding out the 57 marginal oil field and address issues of gross marginalization of oil multinationals and the Federal Government against the Urhobo people.

It said, their call for fresh ceding process of the 57 Marginal Oil Field was necessitated by illegal moves by the Minister for State for Petroleum Resources, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Director General of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), to exclude Urhobo people from the process.

CATESUN appealed to President Buhari in the statement to call his officers in the oil and gas industry to order as they were the architects of the potentially combustive situation, which has the capacity to set the entire Niger Delta on fire again.

It emphasized that a new process will give competent Urhobo men and women the opportunity to participate in oil and gas activities fairly, having “endured injustice, since the discovery of crude oil in their lands.

Other prominent leaders of CATESUN who spoke in same vein, Olorogun Mathew Uparan and Chief Emma Shobor stated that Urhobo nation is host to several oil and gas facilities, including the multi billion dollars Utorogu Gas Plant, reportedly the biggest in Africa, yet it lacks Federal Government presence.

“We are not going back on our threat to shutdown operations of International Oil Companies in Urhobo nation, enough of the marginalization”, they queried.