GEJ’s Loss: Niger Delta Groups Meet Over Oil Blocks

                         Some community and militant groups in Delta State have warned that they will not accept the exclusion of the Niger Delta people in the allocation of oil blocks in Nigeria.

                        A source close to one of the interest groups told SUNDAY PUNCH on Saturday that following the failure of President Goodluck Jonathan to secure the support of northerners and south-westerners in the March 28 presidential election, the people of the region now want to take a stand on how they want the oil blocks allocated.

                        The source said several meetings had been held and more meetings would still hold to arrive at a common position, as renewal of the oil block licences will become due soon.

He said, “You can see how they voted during the election. Every ethnic group voted for their own. But they want to come back to the Niger Delta to take away our resources without even recognising

that we should be involved in the allocations.

“Let them come. We are waiting for them,” the source said.

The source also said the recent series of destruction of oil pipelines and formations in the Niger Delta area was just a warning signal to the authorities that the people would not be ready to take it lightly anymore.

“You can see that most of the oil block licences come from the North and other parts of the country. But when it came to voting, they mobilised their people against our son,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Police in Delta State have yet to find a clue to the explosions that rocked the Ekiugbo-Ighrenene-Afiesere oil pipeline.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Celstina Kalu, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said her office had not been briefed on the incident. But she promised to reach out to the Divisional Police Officer in Ughelli to get situation report.

Urhobo Gbagbako had claimed responsibility for the Friday bombing of the NPDC oil pipeline at Ighrenene community between Afiesere and Ekiugbo, and the shutting down of all the oil fields in Urhobo and Isoko nations.

The group’s spokesman, Priest Omodjuvwu, had said the bombing was to protest the neglect of the ex-militants of Urhobo extraction in the award of pipeline surveillance contracts by the Federal Government.