A former Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Ita Enang has attributed cases of insecurity in the Niger Delta to failure to develop oil producing communities by respective state governors in the region.
Enang said this when members of Domestic Refineries Owners Association of Nigeria (DROAN) visited him in Uyo. He said it was unfortunate that despite huge revenue and allocation, “the governors have made the oil communities unlivable, unbearable and security unwise.”
The former presidential aide who is a patron of the group added that the region is suffering from the “wickedness of the governors of the Niger Delta who have caused insecurity by refusing to apply the 13% derivation to develop the oil producing communities.”
He decried that the region is a security danger to “oil workers who have thought that the best way is to go and live in places like Banana Island and Lekki, and be coming to work in helicopter on daily basis.”
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“Those helicopters, we pay demurrage for them with our resources. The high cost of salaries and earnings of those who work in the petroleum industry, we pay it. We pay for the high cost of what the oil industry workers is paying to the Lagos State Government for living in Banana Island and Lekki. All these are as a result of insecurity,” he maintained.
Enang condemned what he described as “criminality in the oil industry.”
According to him, a good percentage of petroleum used is not imported as claimed but rather taken from modular refineries, loaded onto vessels, taken to the borders and seas and then brought back as imported petroleum.
He said he has been advocating for modular refineries to be legalized since 2009, and promised to continue pushing the advocacy.
“We have no business selling petroleum products beyond a 100 Naira,” he added and thanked the group for the visit.
Earlier in his speech, national president of the group, Mr. Godwin Sunday, appreciated their patron for being consistent in protecting the interest of Niger Deltans.
