From Richard Amayo in Benin City, 08.13.2007
Hell was let lose yesterday at the Oben flow station in orhionwon local government area of Edo state when protesters stormed the station and threatened to wreck havoc.
The flow station own by Shell Petroleum was surrounded by youths chanting war songs as Shell team persuaded them to dialogue but when the persuasion would not hold, the Joint Task Force (JTF) was called in from Warri, Delta.
The JTF on arrival at the flow station ejected the protesters and arrested twelve of their leaders and whisked them to an undisclosed location.
In a press statement in Benin yesterday, the secretary of Host Communities Producing Oil and Gas of Nigeria, Edo State chapter, Mr. Stanley Osayande, said twelve of their leaders were arrested at the flow station and called for their immediate release.
He put the blame of the revolt at Oben squarely at the door steps of the Professor Oserhiemen Osunbor’s government “because he has refused to listen to the cry of our much abused people of the oil and gas producing Areas” Osayande anchored the revolt over the composition of the Edo state Oil and Gas Producing Oil Development Commission.
Expatiating, he declared, “We have told the state government that its composition flawed by godfatherisim and nepotism because those there now, do not represent, the will of the people.”
Fuming, he said, “we want to state without equivocation that we demand the immediate dissolution of that commission as, presently composed.”
http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=86117
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