The Jones Creek flow station, operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, and the Neconde Energy Limited in the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 42 Joint Venture, has been shut down by thousands of protesting women from Okerenkoko Federated and other adjoining communities in Gbaramatu Kingdom, Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, over lingering blackout in the community, on Monday, July 22, 2024.

The protesting women, who were armed with placards bearing various inscriptions such as 'Neconde / NPDC No Light No Operation. Give Us Light', 'Neconde / NPDC Okerenkoko Community Need Light', 'Okerenkoko Need Turbine' among others, hinged their action on the failure of the JV to provide the community with electricity over the years the companies have been operating the flow station while insisting that their communities be connected to the gas turbine powering the platform.

Speaking to news men in the protest site, the protesters comprising of elderly and young women, lamented the poor state and hardship that the lack of electricity has caused the inhabitants of Okerenkoko community for decades.

The women also alleged that the constant blackout in the community is negatively impacting on academics of the Nigeria Maritime University, NMU, a situation they said is causing the institution to lose students daily as some have started to relocate, an action they also said is having a negative impact on commerce.

"We the women you see here are from Egwa, Batan, Jones Creek and Okerenkoko," said one of the protesting women named Esther Ene. "The major reason we are here, if NPDC/Neconde refuse to give us light (electricity), we will lock down this place. For how many years these companies have been operating here, no light, but darkness," she further lamented.

"We need light. Three days from now if we don't see light, nobody will work here. We will shut down Egwa, we will shut down Batan, we will shut down Odidi, everywhere we will shut down unless they give us what we want.

"Most of our students in the maritime university are running away because of no light, no good accommodation, no electricity to charge phones or use computers," she added.

The women further clarified that since the companies have been operating in the area, the indigenes have been the ones generating power for themselves, while the companies he claimed are busy using the revenues from oil production to develop other climes to the undoing of its host communities.

Also, a leader who spoke on condition of anonymity while briefing the media, said that Okerenkoko community has been the one generating power for itself over the years through its private power plants, the constant use of which has resulted in the breakdown of its power generating plants of 1,000 KVA each.

He said, "Sometime in 2006 or 2007, a generating set was given to this community by SPDC, but it has been bad beyond repair after the military invasion of this community in 2009. So, the generating set you are seeing here was bought with our own money in this community in 2015. We bought the two generating sets of which the contractor, the nominated contractor for NPDC, used them to run the community until last year (2023) when the two generating sets got spoilt."

Going down memory lane, he recalled previous steps taken by the community to liaise with the companies to address the lack of electricity, which had also led to protests in the past.

"About two, three, four years ago, we carried out a protest to Jones Creek and shut down that place with demand that we need light, for which Neconde and NPDC JV came. They asked us to nominate a contractor of which we nominated one to them. They even came for site inspection of where the high tension will pass, where they will place their transformer, so on and so forth.

"Thereafter they took excuse of COVID-19. After COVID-19, they came again with another excuse of PIA. We had to wait for the PIA bill to be passed. The PIA bill had been passed, and the Board of Trustees, management and every other member that will make up the PIA management had been nominated, and they had been inaugurated already, yet no light," he bemoaned.

Attempts to reach out to the management of NPDC/Neconde JV to respond to the demands of the community met with brick wall as staff on ground declined to comment. Meanwhile, the protesting women continue to occupy the flow station with a clamour to shut down the facility that produces 19,000 barrels of crude oil daily.

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