NLC wants oil block sale to heritage oil cancelled

Nigerian Labour Congress has called on the Federal Government to cancel the recent sale of one of Nigeria’s most prolific and dynamic onshore oil blocks, Oil Mining Lease (OML) 30, old by Shell-BP and its partners to Heritage Oil.

This is coming on the recent information on the profile of the Chief Executive Officer and Major Shareholder in the Company, Mr Tony Buckingham, whose reputation is still under some level of questioning and probing.

Mr Buckingham has an antecedent of selling weapons to mercenaries in Angola and Sierra Leone, fuelling the civil wars that occurred in those areas. He is also believed to have links with the architects of the failed coup in Equatorial Guinea, in the year 2004.

The United Kingdom and its Nationals have been accused several times of masterminding various internal strifes and wars in former colonies that were oil-rich or mineral-rich, just to greedily benefit from the natural resource potentials.

Another incident that fingered the tendencies of Mr Buckingham was the foiled Wonga Coup ‘d’ etat plot in Zimbabwe orchestrated by a mercenary, Simon Mann who worked for Mr Buckingham.

Comrade Peter Esele, the President of the Trade Union Congress also joined forces with the NLC leader to call for the cancellation of the deal, because if it stands, it will make Africa’s leading oil producer as a mediocre Nation.

Speaking, Peter Esele said “How could Shell with all its acclaimed best practices and due diligence have gone ahead with the sale of such a valuable asset to man with a questionable character. My worry is, was it possible for Shell to sell the block without the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) being aware. If NNPC was aware, what did it do?”.

But Multinational firm Royal Dutch Shell said it was not violating any provision or law, but stated that the whole transaction was done in strict compliance with the regulations of the trade deals in the Oil and Gas sector.

If Mr Buckingham’s profile is anything to go by, the Presidency will have to of necessity invite the Shell Nigeria Group for further investigations into the allegations made against him, because there is no smoke without a fire.

One Comment

1. 

   walerich

   January 14, 2013 at 7:45 pm

   I believe you people are not looking for settlement like you did last year during the save Nigeria / fuel subsidy protest.