Niger Delta development advocate, Prince David Odeli, has made nonsense of the controversy surrounding the pipeline surveillance contracts awarded by NNPCL, saying people of the oil and gas-rich region remain spectators, with over 70% of mega contracts in the oil and gas industry owned and executed by foreigners and Nigerians from outside the Niger Delta.
Odeli, wondered why some individuals have chosen to turn the pipeline surveillance contract into a subject of public bickering, unguided utterances and campaigns capable of causing disaffection among brothers, when it is the only contract that has been deliberately ceded to indigenous Niger Delta firms with local capacity and community access.
“There are far more robust, multi-billion dollar contracts in the Niger Delta value chain that we have not even scratched — offshore drilling, wellhead maintenance, crude lifting, marine security, helicopter services, dredging, waste management. If we aggregate our interests as one people with mutual respect for each other, we can demand local content inclusion in these bigger spaces, instead of fighting over crumbs.
“Yes, it is an indisputable fact that the resources belong to us. But ownership without organization, without mutual respect, and without protection for indigenous businesses, will leave us with nothing but noise.
“Disagreement is allowed. Criticism is allowed. What is not allowed is to threat, blackmail or attempt to incite the region against businesses that are providing employment for our youths and relative peace for our pipelines.
“The Federal Government, the Office of the National Security Adviser, the NNPCL, and the Niger Delta leaders must draw a line: The era of one man constituting himself into a court over who gets what in the Niger Delta must end. Private businesses must be protected from personal vendetta.
Let us focus on the bigger picture: How do we get more Niger Deltans into the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors? How do we build Niger Delta-owned marine, aviation and fabrication giants? How do we ensure that Itsekiri, Ijaw, Urhobo, Isoko, Ogoni, Ibibio, Efik, Ilaje and Ikwerre speak with one voice in economic negotiations
“The fight should be for more inclusion, not for the destruction of the little inclusion we have achieved” Odeli, posited.
The renowned social commentator and community leader, who made the assertion in an electronic statement made available newsmen Wednesday October 7, opined that if the same pipeline surveillance contracts were awarded to companies from Lagos, Kano or Abuja, Niger Deltans would be shouting marginalization.
Now that it is being handled by indigenous Niger Delta firms, which employ our youths, understand our terrain and reduce sabotage, some of us are pulling it down.
“The conduct of ex-militant leader, Asari Dokubo, whose vitriolic attacks on private companies legitimately operating in the region have gone viral, is a case in point. We are not in a banana republic where an individual’s business, won through competitive process and being executed within the laws of the Federal Republic, will be subjected to daily public trial by people who have neither the knowledge, nor the professional experience of the business in question”
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