Protesters invade Chevron’s facility, demand better deal

The military has deployed personnel to protect the Chevron Nigeria Limited’s tank farm at Escravos, Delta State. This followed a protest by the leaders, women, and youths from Ugborodo, the host community, against alleged neglect by the company yesterday.

The protesters made makeshift tents at the entrance of the tank farm, vowing not to depart until their demands were met.

Yesterday’s sit-in was not the first time the Ugborodo community would picket the facility. Last year a similar protest turned violent when soldiers tried to disperse the protesters.

The Guardian learnt yesterday that the firm has evacuated some of its workers, temporarily shutting down operations of a section of the facility until the end of the protest.

Calls and text message to Chevron’s General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs, Mr. Deji Haastrup, were not acknowledged.

Youth leader of Ugborodo community, Mr. Ofe Nene said the community was compelled to protest because the oil firm breached the local content policy, put in place by government to regulate its operations in host communities.

Specifically, Nene alleged that the firm was in the habit of hiring and firing workers from Ugborodo community, alleging further that 400 workers from the community engaged at the tank farm were merely treated as ‘’slaves’’ sacked every six months.

He explained that there was supposed to be a ‘new town’ project in Ugborodo because of the huge Chevron project in the area, but the company abandoned it because it believed the people do not know their rights.

“We learnt that Chevron is about doing turnaround maintenance (TAM) two months ago. We wrote a letter to them complaining that they have not been carrying us along, that they have been deceiving us.

“We are in Ugborodo, but they will invite us to a meeting in Warri, when we get to Warri, they will either tell us that the date is not feasible or that some management officials were not available,” Nene said.

“This has been their style to avoid having meaningful discussion or conversation with us,” the youth leader alleged.

Chevron workers were evacuated from the facility in helicopters and planes, said a security staff member.
“A plane just landed 40 minutes back to continue evacuation of top staff,” he said. “This is in addition to other staff who were earlier evacuated with the use of choppers.”

Ugborodo villagers have a history of staging protests against Chevron. Their complaints; focussing on jobs, community development and pollution-have stayed the same over the years.

In a famous 2002 protest, hundreds of Ugborodo women demanding more jobs staged a peaceful protest at Escravos lasting days.