About 100 villagers took control of one of ChevronTexaco’s offshore facilities as protests against oil companies spread in southwestern Nigeria, a company representative said Friday.
Villagers in a dozen boats occupied an oil production platform eight kilometres from ChevronTexaco’s main Escravos export terminal on Wednesday, said Tunde Ilevbare, a representative for the company’s Nigerian subsidiary.
”We have evacuated all employees to avoid a hostage situation,” he said.
The protesters’ demands were not yet clear, he said. But the company had stopped production at the platform and asked the government for help resolving the situation.
The occupation is the latest in a series of takeovers in the oil-rich Niger Delta, where rival tribes are jostling for scant job opportunities with multinational oil companies.
The two major tribes in the area, the Itsekiris and the Ijaws, won promises of jobs, water, electricity and other amenities after staging a number of all-women protests at oil facilities last month.
Hundreds more women from those and other tribes have picketed Shell and ChevronTexaco offices in the southern port of Warri to press similar demands over the past two weeks.
The peaceful, all-women protests have been a departure for the Niger Delta, where armed men frequently use kidnapping and sabotage to pressure oil companies into giving them jobs, protection money
or compensation for alleged environmental damage.
Hostages generally are released unharmed.
The latest protest is by members of the Ilaje tribe and includes both men and women. It was not immediately clear whether the protesters were armed. – Sapa-AP