Obasanjo alerts community to threat to the economy

Less than 24 hours after arriving in Nigeria form the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Obasanjo met restive youths and their elders in Bonny, Rivers State, and warned that their continued disruption to the Liquefied Natural Gas plant would seriously affect foreign investment to the country. A Lagos newspaper, `The Guardian', reported that Obasanjo - who has only been in office since 29 May - also asked for time to implement development plans in the area. Communities in Nigeria's oil and rich southeast have been clamouring for a much fairer distribution of their region's mineral resource wealth and for modern social services. A Siege by the youth of Bonny forced the $3.8 billion LNG plant to shut down last Thursday, less than two weeks after beginning operations. Obasanjo has promised them his government would try to improve technical skills training in the Delta, a measure which he said would improve the employment opportunities for the youth of the area when the economy regained its buoyancy. "I believe from what I have seen, the economy will soon be on the move again," he said, according to the newspaper. Meanwhile, Officials from the company said repairs were being conducted to the plant after the Bonny community agreed to lift their blockade of the road to the facility. "Our engineers are carrying out repair works on damaged off-site equipment in order to re-start the plant as soon as possible," Andrew Jameison, company managing director, said. Before its shut down the plant was producing 6,000 mt of LNG daily to meet its 1 October shipment date to five European buyers.