Oil transnational faces fresh protests by women

Women protesters in Nigeria have again occupied an oil facility belonging to ChevronTexaco to back demands for amenities and jobs, company officials said on Friday. A similar round of protests had affected several facilities of the company in July. Scores of half-naked, middle-aged women in about 15 boats arrived on Wednesday at ChevronTexaco’s Ewan oilfield, in the western reaches of the Niger Delta, the officials said. Their presence has disrupted oil operations, forcing the company to evacuate its employees from the facility. "The women are not violent but we have taken the precautionary measure of evacuating our staff," a ChevronTexaco official told IRIN in Lagos. The protesters from the nearby Ilaje community of Ondo State were said to have brought samples of damaged fishing nets and polluted waters, accusing the oil transnational of ruining their livelihoods and polluting their environment. "Our fishing lines and waterways have been destroyed, and our commercial trees, straw-mat farms are all dead as a result of gas flaring and oil spillage," Ibimisan Ebiwonjuni, a spokesperson for the protesters, told reporters in Akure, the Ondo capital. The protesters want an agreement with ChevronTexaco that will oblige the company to clean up the environment, and provide amenities and jobs for the inhabitants of the area. In July groups of women protesters with similar demands took over ChevronTexaco’s Escravos oil export terminal and several other facilities. The company later signed agreements with the women from the Ugborodo and Gbaramatu communities, from which the protesters came. Under the agreements it promised amenities such as electricity and potable water, and micro-credit facilities. Oil operations are often disrupted in Nigeria’s southern oil region, where poverty-stricken communities accuse the government and oil transnationals of degrading their environment and depriving them of the wealth derived from the oil mined on their land.