Posted by The Port Harcourt Telegraph on
Barely 24 hours after President Olusegun Obasanjo addressed the National Assembly, reactions have started pouring in from the Niger Delta region.
* list firms that may turn targets
Barely 24 hours after President Olusegun Obasanjo addressed the National Assembly, reactions have started pouring in from the Niger Delta region.
The Movement For Ensuring A Better Tomorrow For Core Niger Delta Youths (MEBTCNDY) said in a communique that youths in the region would begin to move against some multinational companies in phases.
Already, 10 multinational companies have been penciled down by the MEBTCNDY, according to a copy of the communique that is at the disposal of this publication.
They are West African Oil Services, MTN Nigeria Limited, Vmobile, Multichoice (DSTV) and Broad Bank.
Others are Guaranteed Trust Bank, Communication Trends Limited (CTL), Nigerian Agip Oil Company, Nigeria Gas Company and Daewoo Nigeria Limited.
The group accused the firms of being recalcitrant and failing to create job opportunities for the youths of the region.
Apparently, the movement had met on the 22nd of July at Efurun, Delta State to review the situation before it.
"Some of such situations", the communique observed, "include the major fall-outs of the failed (inconclusive) national Political reform Conference, particularly the gang up and arrant posture of other zones against resource control and derivation."
They also lamented the humiliation that multinational companies had meted out to the people of the oil bearing communities.
They noted that their patience has been exhausted and said that the action implementation wing had received the nod to go ahead with interim responses that are expected to target the bases of the firms listed for antagonism in the first phase.
The group called for the erection of a "wider coalition" which would be formed by "all the other core Niger Delta based militia and civil society groups such as Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Ikwerre Response Group, IRG, Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) and Supreme Egbesu".