ActionAid berates NNPC over response to fire incidents

Clement Idoko, Abuja - 31.12.2007

CIVIL society organisation, ActionAid Nigeria, has expressed concern over the recent comments credited to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that the agency would award protection contracts to communities in which its facilities are located.

ActionAid Nigeria’s Country Director, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, described the decision as “another example of reactive, ad-hoc and piecemeal response to the crises in the Niger Delta.”

He said similar approaches by some multi-national oil firms in the past had created and escalated conflicts in the region. “In the light of the divisive and conflict situations these have caused in the past, and given the fact that in the past, this had led to competing youth groups in communities using the contract money to buy arms, it is necessary to ask what steps is NNPC putting in place to ensure conflict sensitivity in this response?” Igbuzor said.

The Action Aid executive member insisted that the solution to the crisis must be a comprehensive and integrated one with all agencies and arms of government working together.

He also expressed concern over the misrepresentation of several incidents of pipelines vandalisation, the character of the perpetrators of the crime and the victims of the attending fire incidents.