By Ikechukwu Okaforadi and Musa Adamu
Oil producing communities have protested the non-payment of land owners by an oil company, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).
The protesters who besieged the main gate of the National Assembly Complex in Abuja on Tuesday, decried the payment of discriminatory land re-acquisition and rentals for land by the oil company.
The oil producing communities, under the aegis of Landlords of Shell Oil Producing Communities of Niger Delta, accused the company of divide and rule.
Spokesperson of the group and former member of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Isaac Onniye, accused the company of paying N200,000 per hectare for some communities as against N600,000 to others.
He therefore insisted on the payment of the differentials to the affected land owners for the 2014 to 2018 payment cycle.
Onniye disclosed that the communities are drawn from Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Abia, Imo and Rivers States.
In a petition addressed to the Senate President Bukola Saraki, the group noted that both parties had earlier appeared before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions.
