Protesters show no signs of backing down as they blocked the gate to offices of U.S. oil company Chevron in Niger Delta on Monday, in a week-long demonstration to demand jobs and housing, a protest organizer and a community leader said.
Youths of the community,
most of them unemployed, since last week blocked the entrance to Chevron's
Escravos oil storage tank farm , claiming the facility
had destroyed their housing settlement.
One of the protesters said "What we shut down on Monday is Chevron's administrative and logistics office in Warri that serves Escravos, No work is going on there as we speak, and Chevron Escravos remains shut."
He also said "Some
of protest leaders are now in a meeting with Chevron personnel at the palace of the
Olu of Warri (traditional ruler of Warri) but the protesters are still
at Chevron's office," he said.
"They are complaining that Chevron is not bringing anything to the table to benefit their host community," he said.
Chevron
on the other hand was not immediately available to comment on the office occupation or
the meeting. The company confirmed last week the tank farm protest
without saying whether oil production had been affected.
Communities in Nigeria's southern swampland have often complained about oil pollution and houses being moved to make way for drilling.
They also say they live in poverty despite sitting on much of Nigeria's oil wealth.
The
Niger Delta region has been hit repeatedly by waves of militant attacks on oil
and gas pipelines, reducing Nigeria's crude output by 700,000 barrels a
day, according to NNPC.
The
militants, which are divided into many groups, say they want a
greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth - which accounts for around 70
percent of national income - to be passed on to communities in the
impoverished region and for areas blighted by oil spills to be cleaned
up.
