By Godswill Anene
Ndoni District Communities, hosts to Sterling Oil Company in Rivers state have described their President General (PG), Tony Major’s instituted face off with the company as unjustified, selfish, and not supported by the communities.
Major, over the lingering face-off had, among other allegations, told an Abuja High Court that police were after him for exposing the oil firm of indulging in illegal oil operations in the locality, but the communities leaders in a statement have said the PG’s claims were far misleading.
The statement by Concerned Citizens of Ndoni District Communities, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area, was signed by Community Development Committee, CDC, chairmen for Ase-Azaga, Chief A. C. Enemuwa, Chief Michael Onyema, (Ndoni), Chief Omeya Clement (Utu), Ndupu Ifeanyi (Agwe-Obodo) and six other community leaders.
The community leaders alleged that Major’s claims, “Are grave misrepresentation of facts orchestrated to coerce and blackmail a responsible Indian company genuinely involved in oil exploration/production and a major contributor to the Nigerian economy.
“At about April 2018,Tony Major deceived some of our indigenes into blocking/besieging the site of OML 146 with cameras on the pretence that the Indian company did not pay communities passage fee since 2014.
“The matter was brought before Operations Delta Safe (OPDS) who invited our leaders and the company to a peace meeting. Revelations on the company’s transactions with Major were so stunning that we hid ourselves in shame at the meeting.
“The company showed with evidence that Major has been collecting the passage fee on our behalf since 2014. Also, through his company, S.A Major Services (Nig) Ltd, Major has secured various contracts from the company amounting N300Million.”
The communities further said claims by the PG that he rejected a Ten Million Naira bribe from the company was laughable, urging security operatives to dig into the matter including alleged Major’s threat messages to some company officials and “we maintain he is on his own”
