IYC threatens to shut down SPDC operations over alleged violation of Nigerian Content Laws

Umbrella body of Ijaw youths, Ijaw Youths Council (IYC), has threatened to shutdown exploration activities of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) over alleged violation of Nigerian Content Laws, which deprived host communities and local contractors in the oil and gas sector of jobs and others.

IYC said youths were ready to shut down the exploration activities of the Shell Petroleum Development Company “even if it means to be killed by the trigger-happy Niger Delta Military Joint Task Force in the region.”

The body directed the warning at the Federal Government, the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), security agencies, and leadership of multi-national oil companies, urging them to avoid breakdown of law and order and vowing to engage multinationals until their demands are met.

National spokesman of the IYC, Ebilade Ekerefe, in an interactive session in Yenagoa, yesterday, said despite the intervention of senior officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), officials of SPDC have terminated jobs meant for indigenous contractors.

Ekerefe alleged that contracts, which ought to be awarded to local contractors and jobs meant for host communities in the Niger Delta Region are been given to relatives of expatriates and other Nigerians at the helm of affairs of the multinationals, depriving the locals of their rights, describing the situation as unacceptable.

The IYC spokesman noted that local contractors from the region have met all value procurement requirements by the certifying bodies in the country to qualify to be awarded such contracts and be gainfully employed in those fields, but frown on the actions of the SPDC and other oil multinationals.

He said: “The Ijaw nation is troubled and angered by the ongoing deliberate deprivation and oppression against indigenes of host communities by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).”

He advocated strict adherence to provisions of the existing Local Content and Petroleum Industry Acts, stressing that these laws regulate the involvement of local and host communities in the business of oil exploration and benefits the people.