Niger Delta youths reject calls for Ojulari’s removal

The Host Communities Producing Oil, Gas and Pipeline Impacted States’ Youth Council of Nigeria (HOSTCONYCN) has condemned calls for the removal of the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Engr. Bayo Ojulari.

The call, made by the Jonathan Lokpobri-led Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), was described as “an aberration” by HOSTCONYCN’s National President, Comrade Emmanuel Pathfinder, who addressed journalists in Warri, Delta State.

Fiawei stressed that Niger Delta youths were “totally against” the “kangaroo protest” staged in Abuja, urging President Bola Tinubu to disregard the demands.

“That call for him (Ojulari) to be removed and replaced is uncalled for; it is an aberration. Nigerians are totally against it and we can never be in support of it,” he said.

He noted that Ojulari, who assumed office barely three months ago, had already demonstrated transparency and accountability, including monthly updates on revenue and profit remittances.

According to him, NNPCL under Ojulari has remitted more than ₦20 trillion into the federation account and raised crude oil production from 1.3 million barrels per day to between 1.8 and 2 million barrels.

Echoing this position, HOSTCONYCN’s National Secretary, Dr AK Etta Peters, said in Abuja that the Tinubu administration’s Renewed Hope Agenda had already brought tangible reforms to the oil and gas sector.

Peters dismissed the IYC’s protest as the handiwork of “disgruntled and frustrated kleptomaniac bureaucrats” threatened by Ojulari’s anti-corruption stance.

“The Niger Delta has over 140 ethnic nationalities. Just one of these groups is too infinitesimal to represent the majority,” he asserted, adding that HOSTCONYCN and other ethnic youth bodies had passed a vote of confidence in Ojulari’s leadership.

The Council vowed to resist any attempts to derail the ongoing reforms in the oil and gas sector, which they say are already benefiting the Niger Delta and Nigeria at large.

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