EXCLUSION OF INDIGENOUS PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE CAWTHORNE CHANNEL PROJECT MEET STIFF REJECTION

The concerned members of the entire communities covering the region under the administration of the DAA 3 Cluster Board, through the secretary, Peter Jumbo, write to remonstrate the deliberate circumvention of several indigenous associations in the Cawthorne Channel Project and vow to resist it vehemently, if such injustice continues unabated.
Cawthorne Channel region wish to alert the municipal government, traditional rulers, chiefs, elders, and every concerned stakeholder in the region that the ungodly romance between Mrs Helen Ugwuezi, the Head of Corporate Services, NNPC EIGHTEEN OPERATING LIMITED and Mpaka Botoye, the Chairman of DAA 3 Cluster Board, portends grave danger to the peace in the region.

The group said they expected their first letter to Mrs Helen Ugwuezi to have sufficed in quashing the unjust behavior of the Cluster Board Chairman, but seeing that Mpaka Botoye still excludes some individuals and skilled associations from employment issues in the region, the group believed that both (the Chairman and Helen Ugwuezi) are in cahoots in this heinous act of exclusion.

“If Mrs. Ugwuezi, as Head of Corporate Services of the NNPC EIGHTEEN OPERATING LIMITED were up and doing, we know that the BOARD would have sat up by now. But now that it is clear that both Mrs Ugwuezi and Mr Botoye are bent on disrupting the peace in our region, we shall deploy every legal means to stop work until the right thing is done.”

The government and stakeholders in our region deserve to know the development of this new action of ours. First, we received complaints from the following professional associations:

1) Sombreior Indigenous Welders & Fitters Association Ogbo

2) Fouchee Bakana & Elem Ifoko Fitters and Welders Association

3) Professional Fitters, Welders and Allied Skills Association and

4) All Indigenous Welders & Fitters Grander Association.

The complaints from the above-listed associations had one focal point, to wit: that the Cluster Board and Management of NNPC EIGHTEEN OPERATING LIMITED have failed to respond to their series of complaints about exclusion from jobs cited in their region. Consequently, we wrote the first letter, which, we dare say, has been treated with levity.

Therefore, we have decided resort to every legal means to shut down the cite. It is our duty to ensure that Indigenous associations and qualified individuals are gainfully employed in accordance with the Local Content Policy. It is really worrisome that the NNPC EIGHTEEN OPERATING LIMITED and Cluster Board that are supposed to ensure that indigenes are well catered for are the same instruments of their unjust exclusion.

Mrs. Ugwuezi and Mr. Botoye have both failed to sustain the peace in our region. Cawthorne Channel Region comprises the following communities:

1) Buguma
2) Abonnema
3) Bakana
4) Tombia
5) Minama
6) Ifoko
7) Fouchee
8) Sangama
9) Captain Kiri
10) Ido
11) Elem Kalabari
12) Abalama
13) Obu- ama
14) Tema

Whatever goes amiss in any of the 14 communities gets our attention. Deliberate or calculated exclusion of qualified indigenes from ongoing projects cited in their land is a very bad act that threatens the peace in the land. It is our duty to stop this act from generating full blown catastrophe in our region by stopping work at the cite. The project that ought to put smile on the faces of indigenes has become a potential threat and catalyst to restiveness and the Board Chairman and NNPC EIGHTEEN OPERATING LIMITED Head of Corporate Services are directly responsible for this.

Having alerted the stakeholders in the region of this dastardly act, we are impelled to issue an ultimatum of two weeks effective from the date of this written complaint for the DAA 3 Cluster Board and NNPC EIGHTEEN OPERATING LIMITED to convene a joint stakeholders meeting to address this injustice. If after two weeks nothing is done, we shall bring the National Youth Council of Nigeria, the Ijaw Youth Council, Eastern Zone all the Indigenous professional associations, individuals and the law enforcement together to shut down that cite. It is our hope that this ultimatum will meet speedy compliance and avert disruption of the project.