A group has arisen to say calls for cancellation of Trans-Niger Pipeline surveillance job being effectively handled by PINL is an attempt to disrupt the pipeline.
The group also said accusations against the Olu of Warri were further evidence of attempt to disrupt the pipeline route by causing disaffection in the PINL zone.
The Niger Delta-based group, the Buckingham Palace group, which frowned at calls by some ex-Niger Delta agitators for the cancellation of the surveillance contract awarded to Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (PINL) said the charges of marginalisation of community youths were trumped up.
The group said there was no evidence that Ogiame Atuwatse III, the Olu of Warri, was involved in bunkering activities.
The ex-agitators under the aegis of Aggressive Niger Delta Freedom Fighters Forum (ANDFFF) had recently issued a statement on social media calling on the Presidency to terminate the pipeline surveillance contract to the PINL on the basis of the above allegations.
Charging back, Buckingham Palace Group, in a statement issued by Kenny Amgbare, Public Relations Officer (PRO), and Festus Ederekumor, Vice President, absolved PINL and the Olu of Warri of any wrongdoing, and described the allegations as baseless, wild, weightless, and inflammatory.
The ANDFFF said the allegations by the ex-agitators were ill-conceived and self- serving.
On the allegations of marginalization of host communities/youth leaders, the group said it was untrue.
It stated that PINL has consistently operated within a framework of inclusiveness, equity, and local content by maintaining active engagements with host communities through employment for all host community youths, capacity building initiatives, skills acquisition programmes, and regular consultations with community leaders and stakeholders through its monthly stakeholders’ engagements.
Other sources said the engagements have been monthly in occurrence involving topmost monarchs, youth leaders, women leaders, and technocrats to know exactly what the pipeline communities would want.
On bunkering, Buckingham Group dismissed the allegation, noting that PINL operates under the direct supervision of federal agencies to defend and deter (not abet) vandalism and oil theft on national pipeline infrastructure. The group noted that accusing Olu of Warri or PINL of bunkering amounted to equally accusing FG agencies that supervise the activities.
It added that to accuse the same security contractor of enabling the very crimes it exists to combat is to misunderstand both logic and law.
The group also said the allegations of sponsoring conflicts within the host communities was untrue as PINL operational ethos was rooted in peacebuilding. Groups have testified at the monthly meetings that crisis and instability have drastically dropped due to support on peacebuilding by PINL officials. They said this effort ranged from brokering dialogue to supporting reconciliation.
They said: “The company is a quiet stabilizer that has invested in harmony, not hostility; building, bridging and mending. If there is any fire, it is not lit by this firm”.
Clarifying on the alleged forceful renaming of communities, the group said PINL, as a private entity, had neither the authority nor interest in such actions; “To suggest that either PINL or the Olu of Warri seeks to rename Ijaw communities is to peddle a dangerous politically motivated and ethnically divisive narrative wrapped in fabrication. This must be disregarded in its entirety”.
It insisted that territorial boundaries were not the playgrounds of corporate ambition stressing that PINL, a private infrastructure company with a defined license and operational mandate by the Federal Government, had neither sought nor claimed ownership of land be it Ijaw or otherwise.
It emphasized that the company did not, and could not have drawn boundary lines or alter land jurisdictions, saying that the allegations were both misleading and incendiary.
The group averred that it was a well-known fact that the activities of PINL have led to increase in oil production and more revenue for the Federal Government through its achievement of near-zero infractions on the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) in the last one year.
The group enjoined the public to see through the veil of propaganda of the accusers and reject the divisive agenda that lies beneath it. “These allegations are not the cries of justice rather they are the chants of opportunism. Their authors do not speak for the Niger Delta. They speak only for themselves”.
The Buckingham Palace Group however, restated its unwavering support for Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd and for His Majesty, the Olu of Warri, whose reign, they said, had been marked by vision, peace, and dignity.
The call went to all stakeholders including traditional institutions, community leaders, youth organizations, and civil society groups in the region to stand united against manipulation and to preserve the existing peace in order to deepen development in the Niger Delta.
