The Federal Government has asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to take operatorship of OML 11 from the end of next month possibly to forestall disruption of oil production in the Niger Delta.

The directive was companied in a statement issued and addressed to the corporation’s Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, by the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari. The ‘juicy’ facility, earlier operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), lies in the southeastern axis of the region and contains 33 oil and gas fields. Eight of them have been producing from 2017.

The Ogoni Youth Federation (OYF) had last year called on government not to renew the lease for the oil well, which expires June this year.However, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has rejected the move. The 28,000 bpd fields were shut following the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa and others in 1995.

In a statement, MOSOP’s President, Fegalo Nsuke, maintained that the resumption of oil exploration in Ogoniland in the face of current pollution remained unacceptable.

•Excerpted from The Guardian report