Protesting indegenes take over Chevron premises, hold interdenominational church service

The indegenes of Ugborodo, Warri-South LGA protesting the neglect, discrimination and nonrecognition of Ugborodo Interim Management Committee by Chevron, continued their occupation of the firm, yesterday, by holding a power-packed service at the front of its Tank Farm.

Youth President of the community, Ofe Nene, said the company was breaching the Local Content Policy, LCP, put in place by government to regulate its operations with host communities.

He said: “The first thing is that there is supposed to a New Town project in Ugborodo because of the enormous Chevron project in the area and impact on the people, but the company has decided to abandon the project because it believes the people do not know their rights and cannot speak.

Also, it is about doing turnaround maintenance, TAM, but for about two months that we complained in a letter to them that they are not carrying us along, they have been deceiving us. They take us as fools, as people who do not know their left from their right, which is why they treat us this way.

We know about the LCP, but they are engaging our people without condition of service as we are slaves. For instance, we have over 400 community people with them, they make them to work for six months or so, after that, they would sack them, make them to stay at home for a month or two, then they say that they have reengaged them again. Some of them have been working for over 14 years and there is not condition of service.”