OVER 120,000 BPD AT RISK? Gbaramatu Women Occupy Chevron Abiteye Flow Station

[00:01:46]My name is Fanti Goodness Owoh Torofah.

[00:01:50]>> Why are you people protesting here in Calabar?

[00:01:53]>> The reason why we are protesting is very simple.

[00:01:56]Supreme Court has already passed a verdict on the delineation of the ward.

[00:02:02]Now is the implementation that they are delaying. That is why we are here. Delay is dangerous. Let them do the implementation now. As you can see, the people the all the women that are gathered here are from this community. We are peaceful. We are peace-loving people. That's why we want them to implement the judgment of the Supreme Court. Thank you.

[00:02:26]>> The failure of the failure, you know that INEC has a a deadline of submitting names in those newly created constituency. And I think that process has stopped. Now, if they are not going to be people to represent those new constituencies. So, now, are you going to going to stay here until that delineation exercise is implemented?

[00:02:47]>> That is what That is our resolve. That is our resolve. We are going to be here.

[00:02:51]This is their own judgment that they have passed. Why are they delaying it?

[00:02:56]What is so difficult about implementation of what they have already passed? What is so difficult about implementation of this delineation exercise?

[00:03:08]We are not leaving here until they they do the implementation.

[00:03:12]>> I am Chief Mrs. Dr. Marian Ebike Anoma and AKA Bolomoyuri.

[00:03:22]The mayor of Amassoma kingdom.

[00:03:25]>> Okay. Why are we here?

[00:03:27]>> The reason why we are here this afternoon is because of INEC.

[00:03:33]The ward delineation exercise that they are carrying out.

[00:03:38]The Federal Court has passed order that they should announce it.

[00:03:44]Up to date, they've not done anything.

[00:03:49]That is the reason why we are here.

[00:03:51]As you can see, everybody is here because of that thing.

[00:03:57]We are the owner of this crude oil here.

[00:04:00]It's our community that is producing this crude oil here.

[00:04:04]And this crude is the one that the the whole Nigeria the nation is feeding on.

[00:04:09]Yet, we are suffering. We are the owner of this land.

[00:04:14]We are here in Kayanbene.

[00:04:16]This is our station, the filling station, the flowing station on our people to say that feeding the whole nation.

[00:04:24]The swamp headquarters of Niger Delta.

[00:04:27]So, we want INEC to implement what the federal government the Supreme Court has passed that they should implement it. We need our word.

[00:04:38]We are not fighting.

[00:04:40]We are peacemakers.

[00:04:42]This protest, as you can see, we don't carry gun. We don't carry any weapon.

[00:04:47]We are peacefully protesting here that they should give us our rights.

[00:04:52]We need our word today.

[00:04:54]If they are not giving us, this place will not leave. We have shut down the filling station now.

[00:05:00]Nothing is happening today until INEC answer us. So, that is the reason why we are here. So, we want the needs to be done. Thank you so much.

[00:05:12]>> Yeah, the reason why we are here is simple.

[00:05:16]Sometime 2002, we had a judgment from the Supreme Court to carry out a fresh delineation in Warri Federal Constituency, which sometime April last year, INEC sent their staff to the field to carry out field report.

[00:05:34]After the report, they bring out an interim report for all stakeholders to go through and make an input, which was done, and the final uh report was submitted on the 20th of May at Asaba that This is the report. What is the report?

[00:05:54]The report is that the war that have been delineated, the Ijaw, the Urhobos, and the Itsekiris have their own areas and war were awarded to those areas.

[00:06:09]But why is it that they are not implementing this delineation report?

[00:06:13]We are the majority in this Warri Federal Constituency. The Ijaws and the Urhobos are the majorities. So, we will not allow any micro minority ethnic nationality to be dictating our political space in this Warri Federal Constituency. And we say no to it.

[00:06:28]That is the reason we are calling on INEC which is has the responsibility to carry out a have the constitutional responsibility to carry out this assignment, to implement the report that they have submitted on the 20th of May 2026.

[00:06:45]We want to participate in this coming general election 2027.

[00:06:50]We need want to participate so that our people can participate in this election. We don't be disenfranchised in this election. So, that is the reason we are here. We are in Abiteye flow station which is owned by Burukuru community. It's owned by Burukuru community. And we are going to show that we have shut down this flow station until INEC implement this report. We are not leaving this place.

[00:07:13]We have the capacity to shut down the onshore operations. And if INEC refuse to do it, we also have the capacity to go to offshore and shut down offshore operations in this our territory.

[00:07:25]>> We understand that we are in Kerebiri.

[00:07:27]And we also know that you have another station at Jones Creek and Makaraba and all that. Are you people going to occupy those ones also or only here?

[00:07:36]>> As I'm talking to you, our the Gramatic people are there. They are in Makaraba, they are in Otonana, and they are in Kerebiri flow station. All the close station.

[00:07:47]All the Chevron operations will be shut down. But even in the great my kingdom the whole constituency will be shut down. The three local government that Chevron is operating.

[00:08:02]Yeah, the reason why we are shutting down this is where the federal government is generating their revenue.

[00:08:08]This is where they are generating we cannot be contributing immensely to the federation and we will be marginalized.

[00:08:15]We are We are contributing to the to the federation. It's our money they're using to develop other places in this country.

[00:08:20]So we CANNOT BE MARGINALIZED. THAT'S THE REASON WE ARE HERE.

[00:08:28]>> [cheering]