Barely 24 hours after its Group Managing Director, Abubakar Yar’Adua, told the House of Representives Committee that the corporation paid $6 million to militants in order to gain access to the damaged Chanomi oil pipeline in Delta State to effect repairs, the Nigerian National Petroluem Corporation yesterday denied making such payment.
In a press release signed by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, the corporation said “at no time did the NNPC have anything to do with any militant group to repair the pipeline, knowing tha t group has the technical competence to carry out such jobs.”
Yar’Adua had told the House Committee on Finance Tuesday that the corporation paid the sum of $6million to the Niger Delta militant groups to enable its officials have a lee way to repair the Chanomi Crude Oil Pipeline in Delta state.
Ajuonuma, who restated the corporation’s commitment to the empowerment of communities in its area of operations as a way of sustaining its services to the people, also denied reports that the Corporation has been spending about $6million monthly on the repair of its damaged pipelines.
“The NNPC categorically refute the allegations credited to our Group Managing Director to the effect that it paid money to militant groups to gain access to the site of the damaged pipeline at Chanomi Creek. We wish to state that the GMD, who has always demonstrated his avowed commitment to community empowerment, was quoted out of context”.
“At no time did the Corporation pay any money to either members of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) or any other militant group for that matter”, the corporation stated.
In reaction to reports of the payment allegedly made by the commission, the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) yesterday threatened that it will in the next 30 days, destroy the Chanomi Creek pipelines as a proof that they were not part of the said deal where the huge sum was paid out insisting that they cannot under any circumstances sell their birth rights for such money.
MEND said it will “never sell its birthright for a bowl of porridge when the impoverished masses in the region continue to live in abject poverty. It is for refusing such bribes that Henry Okah is still being held captive today”.
“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) disassociates itself from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) payment claim of $12million to militants for pipeline protection as stated by its Group Managing Director, Abubakar Lawal Yar’Adua”, the MEND statement reads.
Jul242008