The Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta and
oil major, Shell on Monday denied allegations of coercing the leadership of
Aghoro 1 community in Bayelsa to sign a disputed report on oil spillage.
A disagreement in the areas impacted by an oil leak
on the Trans Ramos Pipeline within Shell’s oilfield at Aghoro communities in
Bayelsa has stalled the release of a Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) report of
the oil spill.
Community leaders, who participated in the JIV to
determine the cause of the spill reportedly refused to sign the report.
The refusal was attributed to wide disparity
between the impacted areas claimed by Shell and the community.
Mr Victor Akamu, Chairman of the Community
Development Committee of Aghoro 1, had alleged that Shell connived with the JTF
to force and intimidation, to compel the community to sign the report.
Akamu said on Monday in Yenagoa that JTF summoned
the community’s leadership to Yenagoa on Aug. 23 to force them to sign the JIV
report but that the leaders refused to sign.
He said the team from Aghoro were labelled pipeline
vandals and were profiled into the database of the JTF.
“We were taken to a room where detailed profiles of
all of us were taken, including our finger prints, biometric details and our
photographs.
“We were temporarily held down for almost three
hours profiling before we were eventually told to go.
“I wanted to ask if it is part of JTF’s job to
force a community to sign a JIV report.
“Shell should stop using JTF to intimidate our
community. For the past 20 years, there is no history of pipeline vandalism.
“This leak was due to a ruptured pipeline, due to
corrosion yet they call us vandals, it is unacceptable,” Akamu said.
However, reacting to the allegation of
intimidation, Mr Bamidele Odugbesan, Media Relations Manager of Shell, denied
use of force to compel the company’s host communities to sign the JIV report.
“Yes, there are issues with the JIV report. The
representative of Aghoro 1 community did not agree with a portion of the JIV
report but we have not used force.
“SPDC does not coerce parties to sign JIV reports,”
Odugbesan said.
Similarly, the Commander of the JTF, Rear Adm.
Apochi Suleiman, dismissed the allegations of intimidation made by Aghoro community.
He said that the military waded into the crisis to
encourage both parties to adopt dialogue to resolve their differences to avert
breach of peace.
“We conduct our duties in compliance with our rules
of engagement. We invited the parties to mediate and encourage them to dialogue
and use the established channels of resolving conflicts.
“I told them to resolve their differences on the
negotiating table so that the operation is not disrupted. Our mandate is to
safeguard oil facilities and we do not want the disagreement to degenerate
further.
“We got reports that some persons were disrupting
ongoing repairs of the ruptured pipelines and that was why some people were
profiled.
“I was emphatic that we cannot tolerate anyone
taking the law into his hands,” Suleiman said.
Investigations showed that the leak, which occurred
on May 17 this year, discharged about 1,114 barrels of crude oil into the
environment and polluted the Ramos River and farmlands.
The draft JIV report said the 1,114 barrels of
crude impacted a total land area of 113.3 hectares in Aghoro 1 but the
community claimed that the impacted area was 1825 hectares.
No comments:
Post a Comment