NAOC: GROUP WARNS IJAW YOUTHS COUNCIL.... Scapegoating and Attacking One Of Your Own Amounts To Plantation Slave Mentality

"Call Ijaw Youths Council to order as their current path is highly dangerous and can likely lead to inter ethnic violence and a total breakdown of law and order in the region".... NDYF Warns.

"We must work together to achieve total and complete resource control of our own oil and gas for the development of our areas and communities, and for the benefits of the generality of our people. 

A group, under the aegis of the Niger Delta Youth Forum, NDYF, has called for caution, youths of the region, particularly, the Ijaw Youths Council, to be mindful of its approach to resolving matters that would negate against the growth and development of the Niger Delta region.

The NDYF, in a statement issued and signed its spokesperson, Bishop C Johnson, revealed that the attention of the Niger Delta Youths Forum, the umbrella body of all Niger Delta youth organizations in the region has been drawn to some video press conference and petitions by Ijaw youths Council or purported swamp and land areas landlords that are directed at one of the few privileged Niger Delta daughters who managed through hardwok to join the management class of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC).  

According to Johnson, "These malicious attacks designed  and orchestrated by forces of division in the region to malign one of our own for their own selfish interest, can only be described as nothing short of plantation slave mentality".

He noted that, "instead of attacking one of the few natives of the Niger Delta, Ijaw youths Council or purported swamp and land areas landlords, should join hands with the Niger Delta Youths Forum (NDYF), the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Ohaneze Ndigbo and other critical stakeholders in the country, to achieve total and complete resource control where all people in the country control and manage their own resources for the development of their own areas and communities, and for the benefits of their own people".

"For the avoidance of doubts, the Niger Delta region is not limited to Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states and certainly doesn't belong to the Ijaws alone. The Niger Delta region encompasses Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Ondo, Rivers and Imo States and all of the ethnic nationalities therein". 

"It is therefore, ludicrous, nonsensical and totally unacceptable for any one ethnic nationality to lay claim to the region or the oil and gas buried underneath the soil of every ethnic nationality in the region", the statement read.

"Mrs Callista Azogu, the Deputy Managing Director (DMD) and General Manager, Human Resources and Organizations (GMH) is a daughter of the soil. A native of Oguta in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State, Mrs Azogu is a landlady to Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited. Oguta community has played host to Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC) since 1964 and is the host community for one of NAOC'S oil and gas flowstations located in Akiri, Oguta through which NAOC evacuates most of its oil and gas in Delta State".

"Ohaji/Egbema and Oguta Local Government Areas, in the present day Imo State but previously of old Ahoada Division have played host to International Oil Companies (IOCs) for over sixty years. It's on record that the first oil well dug in Nigeria was not Oloibiri, Bayelsa State but Egbema, Imo State. Assa North in Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area presently has the largest natural gas reserve in the entire continent of Africa", the statement disclosed.

The statement pointed outed out that, "Mrs Azogu, as the Deputy Managing Director (DMD) and the General Manager of Human Resources and Organizations does not deal with contracts, neither does she recommend anyone for contracts as asserted by the so called Ijaw Youths Council or the so-called Oil and Gas Landlords". 

The NDYF reiterated that, "instead, her office is saddled with the responsibility of staff development. Promotions of personnel are also not handled by her Office alone, rather promotion is a structured process involving line managers and hierarchies who make recommendations to a board for approval. Employments in NAOC also goes through similar process of board approval. It is worthy  of note here and for the record to state in clear and unequivocal terms that due to the economic challenges occassioned by instability in the global oil and gas sector and dwindling and inconsistent oil and gas price, the  Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited has not carried out any employment exercise since Mrs Azogu took office five years ago.  Contracts, promotions, employments and deployments are internal prerogative of every corporate entity including NAOC, host communities cannot detect how each company carries them out".

"It's therefore evident from the facts above that the masterminds of these petitions against Mrs Azogu are some selfish personnel of the company, predominantly natives of Rivers and Bayelsa States who hid under the guise of Ijaw Youths Council or purported swamp and land areas landlords to fan embers of division and ethnic violence in NAOC in particular and the Niger Delta region in general". 

"These personnel are disgruntled elements of the company who are enemies of the fast lane of growth that the DMD/GMH has put in place in the company", the statement further read. 

"These people had chosen this line of attacks on her first, because she's a woman and secondly because of her stand that all staff including herself, must do what is right". 

"We renounce the deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of an innocent woman, Mrs Callista Azogu, the DMD/GMH of Agip who is well known in the industry as a sound professional, selfless, hardworking and impartial. She has received a number of awards to this effect including the PETAN’s Chairman award on local content".  

The NDYF in its statement, revealed that, "the previous GMH/DMD from Bayelsa State and GMH from Rivers State who were men, were never harassed and abused in this manner. It's therefore obvious and clear to any sane human that this woman is being unjustly targeted because of her gender".

"It's also important to note that these threats to Mrs Azogu have been referred to the National Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Women and Humanitarian Affairs as these threats no doubt have some undertones of gender bias", the group pointed out.

The Niger Delta Youths Forum therefore recommended that the Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited launch an internal investigation against these mischief makers who are bent on dragging to disrepute the hard earned credibility of the company. 

Such unfounded allegations against such a highly placed personnel of the company, if not properly addressed and culprits and perpetrators severely sanctioned as a deterrent to future insubordination, will create a toxic work environment in which no one is safe from blackmail, intentional and falsely concocted allegations. 

The NDYF stressed that, this investigation, if carried out, will not only act as a deterrent to false  allegations and unjust blackmail but will uncover the atrocities, wicked and illegal acts by these disgruntled personnel against the company.

"The Niger Delta Youths Forum has on good authority, evidences of human rights abuses, breach of company procedures and criminal activities by these elements against the company and we will make these evidences available to the public in our subsequent press releases", it said. 

"Let it therefore be made known to the whole World, that the DMD/GMH, Mrs. Callista Azogu is a Landlord of NAOC. She is also a Niger Deltan of Oguta origin in old Ahoada Division and now in the present day Imo State of Nigeria, hence the Niger Delta Youths Forum as the protectors of rights of all indigenes of the Niger Delta region, cannot fold its hands and watch an unscrupulous, out of control, disgruntled and renegade set of individuals of any group, under whatever guise abuse any native of Niger Delta including the DMD/GMH, Mrs Callista Azogu of NAOC". 

"We advise that the Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited  disregard the Ijaw Youths Council's noises, shenanigans, publications and petitions which are based on false information and go about its normal businesses and operations without any fear or intimidation as the Niger Delta Youths Forum stands ready to provide support in all of its areas of operations and will mobilize two million youths from the region and beyond against this injustice"

"We call on the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), all stakeholders in the region, security and law enforcement agencies to call Ijaw Youths Council to order as their current path is highly dangerous and can likely lead to inter ethnic violence and a total breakdown of law and order in the region".

Finally, it's time that every ethnic nationality in the Niger Delta region particularly the oil and gas producing communities wake up and realize that we are all in this together, the spokesman said.

"We have all been victims of a well designed and orchestrated systemic marginalization by the Nigerian State, therefore, we must look at the bigger picture where we are the owners of our own oil and gas blocks; not myopic, parochial and selfish personal interest that gives us only peanuts in the name of contracts. 

"We must work together to achieve total and complete resource control of our own oil and gas for the development of our areas and communities, and for the benefits of the generality of our people. 

"However, the achievement of total and complete resource control will be a mirage if we are divided as a house divided against itself cannot stand", it concluded.