Shell warns stakeholders, youths against driving out investment from Niger Delta

The General Manager, External Relations, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Igo Weli, has urged stakeholders and youths in the Niger Delta to stop hostile actions that are driving away opportunities from the region.

Weli said that there were so much rancour, negativity, adversaries and illicit actions among stakeholders and youths, which according to him, were capable of driving out investors from the region.

He warned that investors might look somewhere else when the environment is hostile and volatile for business and therefore called on the people to create an enabling environment for investment to thrive.

The SPDC general manager spoke yesterday at Shell Industrial Area in Port Harcourt during the 2018 SPDC joint venture environment awareness quiz competition for community secondary schools in its land hub.

Weli said: “By our actions, we are the ones to determine whether investors will come into the region to invest or not. There is illegal bunkering, illegal refining, pipeline vandalism, community disruptions and internal strife. How then do you expect investors to come into such environment?”

He said, however, that social investments in host communities had been partly affected by youths’ restiveness and agitations in some communities.

Meanwhile, Rivers State Commissioner for Education, Dr. Tamunosisi Gogo-Jaja, who commended SPDC JV for providing the enabling environment for students to get better understanding of their environment, says the state is currently carrying out campaigns to end corrupt practices by some parents, headmasters and principals of primary and secondary schools in the state.