The Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, has been given a two-week ultimatum by the Creek Reform Warriors, a new militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta, to unconditionally recall local workers from the Ogulagha and Odimodi towns in Delta State who were fired in 2019.
If the oil company refused to heed the plea to restore the hapless workers, the deadly group threatened to shut down SPDC's facilities and reduce oil output in the nation to zero percent.
Vanguard reporters contacted the SPDC Media Relations Manager, Bola Essien-Nelson, on Tuesday and Wednesday to gather the company's comments on the most recent development, but Essien-Nelson did not return their calls or emails.
Leader of the deadly group, self-styled Commander Igbokuro Tinwei, in a statement, threatened: “If these workers from Ogulagha and Odimodi communities are not recalled, all SPDC operations in the Niger Delta, including their pipelines, will be shut down. This is going to be a do or die.”
“We are not joking; we have a team of specialists in different fields. Our struggle is for the liberation of our people from the unemployment in the hands of SPDC, and other International Oil Companies, IOCs, operating in the region.
“We can boldly tell the world that all preparations and plans are on the ground to bring down the Nigerian crude oil production to zero production and this will continue until the IOCs employ our people, there will be no going back.”
“We call on the President, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to call Shell management to order, as the consequence of our attacks on Shell production facilities will impact negatively on the Federal Government’s ability to meet up with its crude oil supply to the world market.”
The militant group alleged that Shell had repeatedly broken its agreement to promptly recall the employees following the COVID-19 epidemic.
It urged the business to create new job opportunities for eligible indigenous people of the oil-producing communities in addition to recalling and rehiring the fired employees at the Forcados Terminal in the Ogulagha community.
