Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Urhobo alert on NNPC surveillance contract

The Independent
22 Feb 2011

Urhobo alert on NNPC surveillance contract

As disagreements trail the recently approved pipeline surveillance job in Niger Delta by the Federal Government, a member of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and former governorship candidate of the Citizen Popular Party (CPC), Chief Ogbe Onokpite, and other prominent Urhobo leaders have warned against attempt to shortchange the Urhobo in the handling of the contract and as well as allocation of slots. Onokpite, who has been under pressure by the aggrieved Urhobo youths to intervene, urged Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, who is the chief security officer of the state, to act promptly, and quickly quell the lingering disagreements among the various oil producing ethnic groups to avert the imminent ethnic crisis as result of the marginalization of the Urhobo, and the unacceptable slots given to the Urhobo in the surveillance job.

He pointed out that NNPC may have awarded the contract to an Ijaw ex-militant war lord, and Itsekiri youth leader, lamenting that how could other oil producing ethnic nationalities like the Urhobo, Isoko, Ndokwa were denied in the handling of the project, insisting that the contract be split among the various ethnic groups to protect pipeline in their respective communities.

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