Twon Brass Protests Against Months Of Power Outage
2 min read
by Our Correspondent
The people of Twon Brass community in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State have protested against the lingering power outage in the settlement that usually had uninterrupted electricity for decades.
BochNews was reliably informed that the protest started on Friday 14th of May 2021 hampering official activities at the company.
The community members, said to have comprised women, youths and elders blocked access to Agip’s operational office with drum beats, singing of native renditions demanding immediate restoration of power.
It was further gathered that attempts by leaders of the Community to pacify the aggrieved members of the met brick wall.
Chairman, Twon Brass Community Development Committee (CDC) Chairman, Chief Benjamin Obuala, who spoke in a telephone interview from Brass on Monday, with a sister medium said; “The power outage commenced since March 2021 and had crippled economic activities in the coastal settlement.
“We in Twon Brass have been used to having reliable power for a long time now, and this outage which happened has left us in total darkness since March. Before this time, the turbine had been having issues and the officials have made promises to replace it.
“We have been enduring for more than two months now and the situation has become unbearable. The provision of electricity is a social obligation by Agip to us and we cannot fold our arms when they show insensitivity to our economic interests.
“This power crisis has wrecked our businesses especially fishing as the cold storage facilities are out of service as well as those dealing on perishable food items and our women have said that they can no longer bear it so we supported them.
“Here the use of generators is not widespread as only very few people have generators so when this outage happened it caught many people unawares leading to unquantifiable losses but the oil firm has been looking the other way and not doing anything to redeem their unfulfilled pledges.
“The neglect of other social obligations listed in our Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) including community development projects, provision of potable water haven polluted the Brass Canal is also part of our grievances.
“We regret that our efforts to use the appropriate channels to resolve these have all been rebuffed by the management of Agip but he have expressed restraint and kept our protest peaceful.
“We have remained on this protest for four days now and we shall remain resolute until Agip shows concern to our plight.”
When contacted for response, Ms Cioni Maririna, Media Relations Official at Eni, parent company of Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC), declined comments.
Another source at the Oil Export Terminal off fyhe Atlantic confirmed that the facility is not affected by the development as the terminal has a separate turbine that powers it.
