The Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has commended the board and management of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) for siting its corporate headquarters in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, urging other companies to follow suit.
In a statement issued by PANDEF’s National Publicity Secretary, Ken Robinson, the group noted that it was gratifying that NLNG decided to relocate its corporate headquarters to Rivers State where it operates.
He said the development was commendable, particularly, coming in the face of the fallacious and undesirable pretext of insecurity being advanced by antagonists of the Niger Delta Region on the refusal of the International Oil Companies (IOCs) to relocate their operational headquarters to the Niger Delta.
“The IOCs produce millions of barrels of oil and gas daily from the Niger Delta region without considerations for insecurity. They only drill the crude and fly back to Lagos, pay taxes to the Lagos State government and boost the state’s economy. That is a disservice to those in whose land the industry operates.
“Meanwhile, oil and gas exploration activities continue to degrade the region’s ecosystem and attenuate the peoples’ means of livelihood, with little or no effort to ameliorate their consequential dire standard of living. Why should the people be happy?”
PANDEF added that the Niger Delta region remained the biggest victim of the disturbing inconsistencies, injustice and unfairness in Nigeria, asking: “How can anyone fathom the fact that the region that produces the wealth of the nation has some of the highest youth unemployment in the country?
“We wish somebody could look at the Nation’s Coat of Arms, we talk about peace and progress, but nobody is talking about justice forgetting that without justice, there cannot be peace.”
While commending the NLNG for moving its corporate headquarters to the Niger Delta, PANDEF urged other oil companies and their collaborators to have a rethink and follow suit, by relocating their headquarters to their areas of operation, insisting that no excuse was tenable for their continued stay in Lagos.
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