Posted by By CHRIS IKWUNZE, Port Harcourt on
Chevron Oil Company has reopened two oil stations closed last week by militant youths of the Niger Delta region under army protection.
Chevron Oil Company has reopened two oil stations closed last week by militant youths of the Niger Delta region under army protection.
The two flow stations at Idama and Robert-Kiri were closed last Thursday when more than 100 armed youths in speedboats stormed the place. The two flow stations account for about one per cent of Nigeria's oil production of 2.5m bpd.
Sources close to the company told Daily Sun that the company was able to reopen the flow stations with the assistance of heavily armed soldiers and mobile policemen who are currently providing round-the-clock security watch to the staff.
In the meantime, detained leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, had reportedly told his followers to remain calm and not to do things that would jeopardize his case.
Dokubo's lawyer and confidant, Barrister Uche Okwukwu, who was detained when he went to see Dokubo in Abuja but was later released, told Daily Sun that the militia leader had called for calm.
"Asari-Dokubo gave me the instruction to tell his loyalists that nobody should harm any foreigner or do anything criminal," adding that the detained Ijaw leader told his followers not to "do anything that could put his case in jeopardy."
The lawyer, who described his arrest and detention when he went to see Dokubo as high-handed and criminal, was grateful that he has been released to enable him prepare Dokubo's defence.
Deputy leader of NDPVF and Dokubo's right hand man, General Alali Horsfall, said that the group had suspended any plan to attack oil installations.
Dokubo, who held the entire Niger Delta region by the jugular last year with his comrade in arms and rival, Ateke Tom, was arrested September 20 in Port Harcourt. On Thursday, September 22, he was charged to court in Abuja and remanded in custody for two weeks.
Police are investigating charges of sedition in connection with a newspaper interview in which Dokubo allegedly called for the break up of Nigeria.