Activities at the Eket Local Government
area of Akwa State were on Wednesday paralyzed as physically challenged
persons protested non-inclusion in the payment of the oil spill
compensation money given to the area by ExxonMobil.
ExxonMobil had paid 25 percent of the
N1.127 billion which the oil major claimed was for developmental
projects in the area, not oil spill palliative which reportedly occurred
on November 9, 2012 in the area.
THISDAY learnt that no fewer than 500
persons with disability including youths and women staged the protest at
the local government secretariat complaining of non-inclusion of their
members in the oil spill compensation fund made available by the
American oil major.
The people with disability in a show of
strength barricaded the entrances to the council secretariat in the
protest that started by 7a.m.
Their action forced the local government council to be shut down as the workers that reported for work were left stranded.
Some of the placards displayed by the
demonstration reads “We are stigmatised even in our community’’, “Elders
give us our right”, “Why are we treated as non-indigenes of the area”,
“Oil Spill Committee be bridge and not Barrier to person with disability
in Eket’’, “Oil spill committee why refusing to include disable persons
in the oil spill compensation money’’, “Elders carry us along.’’
The Publicity Secretary of Joint
Association of Persons with disability, Eket chapter who was the
spokesman for the protesters, Mr Raphael Ekanem, stressed the need for
the Eket community to include disable in the community development
projects in the area.
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