Uprising is boiling up against Total E&P over an oil spill that has wrecked livelihoods and displaced families in Orashi, Rivers State for more than a year.
The Umuoga family of Idoke community in Ahoada East Council said it has for 14 months suffered from the “divide and rule tactics” of the multinational oil giant.
Fury and confrontation
On September 18, members of the family stormed the premises of Total at the Trans Amadi Industrial Estate, Port Harcourt to protest against the environmental degradation of their farmland. They demanded compensation and clean up.
The Umuoga clan, comprising seven family units, is upset that the oil spill in July 2013, the result of a blowout at kilometre 25 of OML 58, a facility of Total E&P, otherwise known as ELF Petroleum, covered several kilometres of their land and river.
Family spokesman, Messiah Okweze, who led the protest, told TheNiche that they took the action because Total refused to listen to repeated pleas to clean up the spill.
“We have written a series of letters to Total E&P Limited without any response. Our family has also not been contacted.
“The clean-up of our ancestral farmland has not been done. We feel frustrated and intimidated by the action of the oil company,” he lamented.
Okweze alleged that instead of the company dealing with them directly, it engaged with outside elements without their knowledge.
Total Manager (Community Relations), Tolos Isaiah, spent nearly one hour trying to calm the protesters, among them women and elderly men, who lamented the lack of drinking water and food because of the environmental damage.
Isaiah invited Okweze, two other family members, and their counsel, Chika Idoko, for a meeting with the management of Total.
Others present at the meeting included Deputy General Manager (Community Relations), Iduoku Izu; Manager (Lands and Claims), Chile Izim; and managers from the departments of environment, survey, and estate management. The meeting lasted for about two hours.
The officials disclosed that they had been holding talks with one Ahamaefule Okonba who claimed to represent the Omuoga family. Okweze countered that Okonba is not from the area where the spill occurred and as such lacks the locus to represent the family.
The officials also claimed that the company has cleaned up “the several kilometres of the affected land area,” sent quantity surveyors to delineate the area, as well as estate valuers to access the damage.
But Okweze dismissed the claims, saying, “We are aware that they burnt the affected area but, it now appears that that is the clean up exercise that Total is referring to.
“They agreed that the spill occurred from their faulty equipment. They also agreed that the spill occurred on our family land. They also agreed to pay us compensation for the damage that the oil spill caused to our ancestral farmland.”
Total accepts responsibility
Idoko said “the first thing I asked them when the meeting began was their legal representation in the matter, because the Community Affairs Manager, Tolos Isaiah, had called me to ask for a meeting with me and my clients.
“They assured us that we can go ahead without the presence of the company’s legal representation. They assured me when I insisted on meeting their legal team that Total is not denying that an oil spill did occur in the said farmland in Umuoga community in July 2013.
“I asked them why they had not bothered to invite our clients; I asked them whether Ahamaefula Okonba, the man that Total claimed it had been dealing with in Omuoga community told them he was representing the family members who are the true ancestral owners of the Nkpeli farmland, in Umuoga.
“I told them that their tactics had essentially been that of divide and rule and nothing short of that.
“Total agreed that an oil spill occurred at the said time in the affected area in 2013. Total agreed that the spill was caused as a result of equipment failure.
“Total also agreed that the spill went out of their right of way which makes them liable for any damage the spill might have caused.”
Idoko recounted that although Total also agreed that it would pay compensation to the Umuoga family and that it had started preparing the papers, it did not respond to several letters of complaints in the past because of its understanding that there is a dispute between Umuoga and Urhumukpe community over the farmland where the oil spill occurred.
Total promises compensation
Isaiah noted that this issue “is a family matter that can be better settled out of the glare of the media. We will hold a meeting with the parties involved to amicably resolve whatever difference might have arisen in the cause of the oil spill.
“Total is a caring oil company. It is not true that we have refused to compensate the families whose farmland were affected by the spill. Now that a channel of communication has been opened, we are hopeful that an end to this matter is in sight.”
The family has taken a stand to fight on if Total fails to deliver on its promise.