This is an interesting development by African Women.
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LAGOS, July 9 (AFP) - A group of around 150 Nigerian women demanding jobs for
their sons occupied an oil terminal owned by US-owned Chevron Nigeria on
Nigeria's south coast, company officials said Tuesday.
More than 700 workers, both Nigerian and international staff, are trapped
by the women in the Escravos terminal, a major crude oil storage depot 300
kilometres (190 miles) east of Lagos, Chevron spokesman Wole Agunbiade told
AFP.
"The protesters, who have barricaded key installations in the tank farm,
have disrupted very important operational facilities at the facility," Chevron
Nigeria's public affairs manager Sola Omole said in a statement.
An engineer at the site told AFP by telephone that the protesters seized a
supply boat on Monday morning and spread out in three groups of 50 to occupy a
landing strip, helicopter pads, docks and a tank farm.
Work has all but ground to a halt at the Escravos terminal, which lies in a
coastal swamp and workers can not leave or arrive, the worker, who asked not to
be named, said.
The women arrived carrying food supplies, he said, and were demanding that
Chevron employ their sons from the nearby Arutan and Ugborodo communities.
Chevron officials said the Nigerian security forces had been alerted but
that the company was attempting to end the stand-off through negotiation with
the protesters and community elders.
"The management of Chevron Nigeria Ltd has continued to appeal to the women
to embrace peaceful dialogue in the resolution of their demands," Omole said.
Local people demanding money or jobs in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta
region regularly hijack oil facilities, sometimes kidnapping but rarely harming
oil workers.
Oil companies publically deny paying ransoms or protection money for their
terminals, although privately managers admit that they sometimes make pay outs
to protect production.
Chevron, which operates the Escravos facility in partnership with the state-
owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, is one of the largest foreign
oil companies working in Nigeria.
In 1999 it accounted for 407,000 barrels per day, out of a national daily
average of two million.
All the oil produced by the firm in the western Delta region of Nigeria
passes through Escravos.
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