By Emmanuel Masha


A Niger Delta-based group, Niger Delta Youths Leaders Administrative Council (NDYLAC), yesterday threatened to sue Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, for choosing Lagos State for his refinery.

The group claimed that Dangote contravened the local content bill signed into law by the National Assembly by not choosing the Niger Delta region, where the raw materials for the refinery comes from.

The group in a statement jointly signed by Magnus Uche and Pobewei Abie, chairman and secretary respectively, said the Nigerian Local Content Law had created a framework for indigenous content in the country’s oil and gas industry.

The group explained that the bill which also provided for indigenous participation in the sector by ensuring that local services and raw materials would be used as a channel of transferring skills and technologies for employment opportunities. It said that the location of the refinery in Lagos other than the Niger Delta, where the raw materials would be sourced amounts to “continuous enslavement of the people of the Niger Delta area.”

The group also noted that the $18 billion so far spent on laying of subsea oil and gas pipelines to connect the raw materials from the region would deny the unemployed youths of the area more than 5, 000 jobs thereby increasing the rate of poverty in the region.

NDYLAC vowed to “take every legal means to ensure that Aliko Dangote rescind his decision of citing the billion dollars refinery in Lagos. Our people have suffered untold hardship over the years and this cannot be allowed to continue again,” it said.

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