Stand-off between Rivers State House of Assembly and the petroleum pipeline marketing company PPMC continued as the NNPC subsidiary again turned down the invitation of the ad-hoc committee set up by the Assembly to investigate the pipeline explosion that occurred on June 22nd in KomKom community, Oyigbo local government area, which killed at least 50 persons.
No reason was given by PPMC for their absence on Thursday after turning down an invitation of the committee on Tuesday without reason.
Expressing anger on the repeated action of the PPMC, Chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Hon Igwe Aforji, said the house would no longer condone such negligence.
He said another date would be sent out for them to appear and failure to appear would lead the assembly to further actions.
“You can also see with us that today again they are not here. I want to state very clearly to Rivers people and everybody that is here, that we are under oath to protect lives and properties of our people and the Chiefs and the people of KomKom community must surely get justice, the truth is that we have seen that the NNPC and its subsidiary is not seeing this as an important issue ”
He further appealed to the community to be relatively calm and peaceful on the matter and not indulge in any form of protest that will result in the breakdown of Law and order.
He assured them that the committee will work tirelessly with all the necessary information at their disposal to ensure that the NNPC and its subsidiaries will oblige to the demands of the community.
He added that proper recommended remediation will be carried out to restore their environment to an acceptable state.
On his part, member representing Tai constituency, Hon Mathew Dike, who also was not happy with the action of the company, said if Rivers State House of Assembly takes action against PPMC, people would blame the Assembly for fighting with the federal government.
He said the state assembly has powers to legislate on issues of the environment
“What on earth would make a people sad if up till now the NNPC cannot respond to call and come here and address this all-important issue”
“If RSHA takes an action, they would say ‘ah’ the Rivers state government has started again to fight the Federal government, but now nobody has said it, nobody has imagined the harm this action has caused the people,” he said.
He insisted that if the activity of the PPMC must continue in Rivers State, they have to honour the invitation of the House.
Men of the civil defence, delegation from NOSDRA, Rivers state ministry of education and the KomKom Community were all present.
