THE commander of the Niger-Delta Freedom Fighters (NDFF), aka Egbema One, which kidnapped the four American oil workers of Global Industries, an oil servicing company to the Chevron Nigeria Limited on May 8 in Delta state spoke to Saturday Vanguard in the encampment, where the workers are being held hostage in the creek.
Excerpts:
Why did you people kidnap the four Americans?
Our problem is not with the hostages. We decided to hold them hostage as a means of making the oil companies, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and the government to know that we are neglected. After the discovery of oil in Olobiri, Egbema kingdom was the next and since then, we have not seen any development.
Shell and Chevron have been operating since 1971 and since then, our place has remained undeveloped. The attitude of these three groups made us to take this action because we are being marginalised by them.
Also, we want the detained leader of the Niger-Delta Peoples Volunteer Front (NPDVF), Alhaji Asari-Dokubo, former governor of Bayelsa state, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Ralph Uwazurike, the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) to be released. Go round and see for yourself, we have no roads in Egbema kingdom where about 95 per cent of oil is produced in Delta state.
We also do not have schools in Egbema kingdom even though we occupy a large section of the state. We need tertiary institutions and employment for the youths of this kingdom.
Besides, we don�t have pipe-borne water in our communities and we want contracts to be awarded to indigenes of Egbema.
These contracts should not be for non-indigenes only while our communities which are facing the threat of being washed away, namely Gbokoda, Opuama and Polobubor should be saved from extinction. We also want them to dredge the canal from Ogbudugbudu-Polobubor and construct the Ogbinbiri-Ofunama-Udo road. Also, we want jetties to be provided to all our communities as well as providing generating plants and building of town halls, market stalls for communities in Egbema kingdom.
We also want commissioners to be appointed from Egbema, GSM masts to be installed in our area, teachers to be provided for our primary and secondary schools. Papa when say make im pikin no sleep, himself no go sleep because the pikin go dey cry and disturb the papa.
But all these things you enumerated are not things the oil companies would do, it is the duty of the government to provide them…
We know that the government is supposed to provide these things for us but the oil companies are making a lot of money from our environment and they are stashing the money abroad. Are you saying that it is not part of their social responsibility to provide some of these things for us. Or which ones have they done?
We know where to hold the government but when we talk about job slots for us in the oil companies, it is the companies we will hold, not the government. You see, our action is not directed at the Chevron alone, it is to the oil companies operating in our area and also for the government to wake up to their responsibilities.
If you say there are no hospitals here, where are sick people taken to?
That is one of our greatest problems. We have to travel a distance of over three hours to take the sick ones to Warri and Sapele. You know what that means; about 1,000 people die every year as a result.
But the Chevron oil company used to visit the oil communities with their houseboat clinics…
That was in the past, we don�t see them again
Why are you holding the oil companies when there is a government agency, the NDDC that was set up to develop the oil communities?
That one, we don�t know what they are doing. They said that they awarded contract for the Udo-Ofunama-Azakurama-Zamagie-Ogbudugbudu-Ogbinbiri �Abere road about two years ago and after the survey was done two years ago, we have not seen them.
Do you know that kidnapping people as your group had just done is a criminal act?
Government and the oil companies can say whatever they want to say about what we are doing (being a criminal act) but we know we are no criminals. The companies take our oil, make money for themselves and the government without taking us into consideration. They invaded our land and took our oil and yet, they call us criminals for saying that they should not continue taking our oil without developing our environment.
You know the Americans and other foreign oil workers have only come here to work, what do you think
will happen if Americans in turn start kidnapping Nigerians that had gone to work there too?
Look, it is not really that we want to pick white people as hostages but the truth is that the black man does not have hostage value; I don�t know if you understand what I mean. It is the only the expatriates that have hostage value and we kidnap them because we don�t like seeing them working here while our graduates are left unemployed by the oil companies.
You are calling for development, how can the government bring development to the region when you are causing tension with the kidnapping of oil workers and bombing of oil installations?
If they really say that they will develop the Niger-Delta region, kidnapping will stop. We will even protect the foreign oil workers for them.
But President Obasanjo said long ago that they want to develop the region but the real problem is that you people continue to kidnap oil workers.
He did not mean it. If he meant it, he would not be calling us criminals, he knows that we are fighting for our rights. When the government means it, we will know and we will stop it (kidnapping) for them to do what they have promised. Right now, they promised but didn�t fulfill what they had said. That is the problem.
I learnt that Egbema One kidnapped the Americans in order to be paid ransom. Is this not true?
That is not the truth. We did not kidnap for money. I told you the reasons why we kidnapped the Americans. Or don�t you believe me? We want development in Egbema kingdom.
So, when are you going to be release them?
We will release them anytime Chevron signs agreement with us on the development projects they will site in our place with the government as observer, just to witness what they have said.
What guarantee are you giving Nigerians and the US government in particular concerning the safety of the Americans in your custody?
They are safe, we will not harm them but if they try to send the Joint Task Force to come here to release them by force, then, there will be bloodshed. But as long as they tell us what they will do for us, we will hand them over safely, nothing will happen to them.