By Mark Lenu
The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People has dissociated itself from an alleged meeting with President Bola Tinubu on plans to resume oil exploration in Ogoniland.
MOSOP in a statement made at the end of its Executive Committee Meeting in Port Harcourt on May 18, 2024, by its President Fegalo Nsuke slammed those who allegedly met with Tinubu, accusing them of misrepresenting the Ogoni interest.
Fegalo said: “The attention of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has been drawn to media reports of a State House meeting held on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, between Mr President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and some persons claiming to represent the Ogoni people.
“The said meeting, being facilitated by a key player in the oil. and gas industry in collaboration with some government-paid chiefs of Ogoni extraction is a slight on the Ogoni people in particular, and a denigration of the struggles of the entire Niger Delta people. MOSOP strongly condemns the misrepresentation of the Ogoni people at the meeting and unequivocally dissociates itself from the meeting.
“The meeting was motivated by greed aimed at misrepresenting the situation on the ground to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a listening president who has shown remarkable commitment in finding a lasting solution to the critical national issues and he is counted upon for a fair and just solution to the Ogoni problem.
“MOSOP wants to emphatically state that these are people without any knowledge of how Shell left Ogoni; or what drives the Ogoni struggle. Also, they are completely ignorant of the painstaking efforts made by MOSOP at the village and community levels in sensitizing our people on the need to revisit the oil production issue after decades of battling with selfish and divisive forces.
The audacity to misrepresent facts on a sensitive issue like oil resumption in Ogoni is an act of economic sabotage, considering the progress so far made in resolving the Ogoni issue once and for all. That is why MOSOP sees the meeting as a failed attempt to make the Federal Government lose the Ogoni people’s confidence.”
