Protest rocks Akwa Ibom over FG’s allocation of oil wells

Akwa Ibom indigenes yesterday took to the major streets in Uyo, the state capital, protesting alleged Federal Government’s inequitable allocation of oil blocs.

The carnival-like protest was championed by a socio-cultural organisation, Mboho Mkparawa Ibibio.

The protesters carried placards with various inscriptions, calling on the Federal Government to address the injustice in the allocation of oil blocs.

The protesters marched from the secretariat of Mboho Mkparawa Ibibio along Udo Udoma to the Government House in Barracks, chanting solidarity songs.

Some of the inscriptions on their placards read: North should stop using our oil money to sponsor Boko Haram or kill our people; Revoke oil blocs allocation and re-issue to accommodate Akwa Ibom people; Mboho demands equity and fair play; Oil exploration and exploitation in Nigeria since 1957-2013, Niger Delta has nothing to show; We own the land, we suffer the effects and North owns the money; FG should stop marginalising Akwa Ibom people; Don’t use our resources to punish us; We deserve better treatment in Nigeria.

Addressing newsmen, the International President of the group, Nse Ubeh, said the people of the Niger Delta region are the ones who have over the years borne the brunt of the national burden that have metamorphosed to the country’s wealth.

Ubeh expressed sadness that Niger Delta people were suffering unimaginable degradation and deprivation occasioned by decades of oil exploration and exploitation.

His words: “It is indeed ironic and a sad episode of the Nigerian political and economic scheme to note that a region that produces more than 90 per cent of our national wealth, and which has rightly been referred to as the layer of Nigeria’s golden egg, could be so marginalised and dehumanised.”

Quoting Amnesty International report of 2009 and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ubeh said oil exploitation in the Niger Delta has brought impoverishment, conflicts, human rights abuses and despair to the majority of the people in the oil producing states.

“Amnesty International went on to report that pollution and environmental damage caused by the oil industry have resulted in violation of the rights to health and a healthy environment, the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to gain a living through work for hundreds of thousands of people.

“Also, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on its part describes the region as suffering from administrative neglect, crumbling social infrastructures and services, high employment, social deprivation, abject poverty, filth and squalor, and endemic conflict,” Ubeh said.