Following a petition written by one Raymond Gold Oloriode where he made some weighty allegations against the Integrated Oil and Gas and its Chairman, Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho over Tomaro Island Refinery Development Project and articulated by one Christina Armstrong Ogbonna, the communities of Onisiwo Island in Amuwo-Odofin local Government Area of Lagos State have come out to dissociated themselves from the petition describing the writers as not speaking for the communities.
The communities who made their position in a resolution signed at the end of the stakeholders’ meeting between the Integrated Oil and Gas and the communities of Onisiwo Island in Lagos on Wednesday further insisted that Mr. Raymond Gold Oloriode should apologize to all relevant regulatory bodies as well as to Integrated Oil and Gas Limited for the embarrassment that he caused all concerned saying that in the process whereby he failed to apologize, drastic actions would be taken on him.
The communities in the resolution signed by a representative of the Hon. Minister of Environment, Mrs. Doris Okoawoh, a representative of Lagos State government, Mrs. Mary Abiola and the Project Environmental Consultant, Prof. Mohammed Mamman Alhassan disclosed that they supported the Tomaro Island Refinery Development Project adding that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process had started on the site of the refinery as far back as December 2015 and was currently ongoing.
While insisting that the physical development of the proposed project was yet to commence as alleged by the petitioners, the communities directed that there should be a press conference by Integrated Oil and Gas limited to refute the allegations made by Mr. Raymond Gold Oloriode, Christina Armstrong Ogbonna and others.
Speaking in a press conference that followed the meeting, the leader of the communities on the Island, the Baale Agala II of Onisiwo Island, Chief Lamina Akesode stated that the project was what all the communities in Tomaro Island had supported as according to him, they knew that when the project was sited in their communities, it would lessen poverty for their people and the youths of the communities would be gainfully engaged in the project.
“That was why the petition they wrote against the project, all our communities dissociated ourselves from the petition, that was why we followed them to the length of coming here to see that we support the project and we want the project to continue so that it will relieve us from poverty”, Chief Akesode said.
He appealed to the relevant government agencies involved in making the project a reality to quicken the process and give the Company all the support it needed so that the project would be delivered on time in order that the communities would benefit from the project.
On his part, the Chairman of the Integrated Oil and Gas, Chief Emmanuel Iheanacho expressed his surprise on the different allegations peddled against the company and his person about two months ago where it was alleged that the project had commenced describing it as neither true nor having any substance whatsoever.
Iheanacho pointed out that those allegations were articulated in the first instance by Mr. Raymond Gold Oloriode who he said led the charge as well as Christina Armstrong Ogbonna who claimed to be a freelance reporter who wnet about telling lies that had nothing to do with what the company was doing on the Island.
According to him,” The first untruth that they told is that oh! They were working day and night and most of their machineries were shaking and breaking down houses whereas we exactly started our EIA process way back in December and we were quietly, painstakingly going through the process, having regular meetings with the host communities, talking with them, explaining to them what we were doing.
“And the other thing about the issue is that the DPR licensing process does not allow you to willy-nilly start constructing a refinery. First and foremost, you need to neatly collect your standard and DPR will give a license to start a refinery and that does not mean you can start constructing because there are so many other things that the DPR requires you to do and we were upon that fact hoping that when the time comes and they get us the license to start constructing, we will start thinking of how we will construct the refinery.
“But unfortunately, Raymond Gold and Tina Armstrong, for reasons which are entirely unclear but which we will find out in due course, started telling untrue and heavy lies and the project”.
Iheanacho who is the former Minister of Interior disclosed that in the last one month, the company undertook a research on the issue of the dredging the company was alleged of doing noting that what they found was extra ordinary.
“We found a situation where the people who were accusing us had actually gone to different sites all over Lagos, they had gone to Ijegun, they had gone to Ogogoro village, they had gone to everywhere and taking photographs and they continued to tell more lies that this was the site.
“But thankfully, the people who are actually seated on my left here who are our community people will know if there is any work that is ongoing. We have not started any work at all. We have also given a similar opportunity to a team from the Federal Ministry of Environment and all the regulatory agencies to come on to Tomaro Island to see if there is anything that is ongoing. We have nothing actually ongoing”, he said.
The Integrated Oil and Gas boss further noted that two days after the day that Tina Armstrong had accused the company of building things at the site, they saw their names on Sahara Reporters and on the internet that Captain Iheanacho, the former Minister of Interior had been found threatening somebody when he had not spoken to anyone wondering why that was the case.
He maintained that for anybody to come into the company, leaving the Chief Executive of the company and other Executives of the company but chose to go after the Chairman, calling him by his name, such a person must have a sinister motive adding that,” I think in this case, all they want to do is to tarnish my image and reputation. I refuse to have my image tarnished and that is why we are standing up after painstaking investigation of all the matters to refute publicly that publication that were made that perhaps, we were constructing a refinery without reference to the DPR”.
While describing the allegations as false, he revealed that the faculty that they had developing the refinery had two DPR assigned engineers whose duty it was to make sure that they were working according to the books.
Iheanacho who is the Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the 2015 general elections in Imo State also denied having threatened anyone stating that the company would never go against the rule in terms of what it was doing even as he said that the company would do whatever it was doing on the Island according to the books.
He continued,” Let me tell you by the way because people are talking about dredging and carrying on as if dredging is a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with dredging, you dredge for several reasons, you could dredge to create depth, you could dredge to recover lands, the important thing is that there is a process to be followed and you follow that process and you are given permission. So, when anybody goes there and raise allegation of damages caused by dredging, they are lying because you cannot have a situation where dredging causes damages to some things in the hinterland and it doesn’t touch the coast.
He therefore prayed the support of all the regulatory agencies to what the company was trying to do on Tomaro Island saying that it would bring jobs, prosperity as the company would give light to the Island as well as water so as to stop people from wallowing in poverty when they could be rich.
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