Bonny chiefs accuse oil firms

Traditional rulers in Bonny Island, centre of Nigeria's largest gas and oil production area in Rivers State, have warned firms that youths in the area might attack their facilities unless they provide jobs and abide by a development deal with the community, `The Guardian' newspaper of Lagos said on Tuesday. In a statement on Monday, the Bonny Chiefs Council said islanders had not seen any improvement in their lives in the seven months since they entered into a memorandum of understanding with the companies - the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, Shell and Mobil. The chiefs accused them of failing to consult the Bonny Kingdom Development Committee, of not employing qualified residents who are frustrated by repeated interviews, and of not agreeing to have the council represented on the Bonny Environmental Consultants Committee, the newspaper said. The chiefs also said the firms disregarded an Environment Impact assessment report done on the liquefied gas project, and "warned that it was becoming difficult to restrain the frustrated youths in the area from taking the law into their own hands". The chiefs claimed the oil firms had destroyed their traditional historical heritage, Reuters reported. Reuters also said that new investments had increased by at least US $5 billion in recent years with the liquefied natural gas plant due to begin production in October. Mobil Corp, it said, commissioned its gas plant in 1998.