As the rift between AITEO Group and Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, deepens, the former has purportedly hired the services of fictitious youth groups under the auspices of the Council of Ethnic Youth Leaders of Nigeria, to further drag Shell.
Heritage Times recalls that recently in February, a Federal Court in Lagos had issued an injunction barring Shell from withdrawing money from 20 commercial banks, until it addresses potential damages in a lawsuit brought against it by AITEO.
In the suit filed, AITEO is reportedly seeking about $4 billion in total, over alleged problems with the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) pipeline it bought from the Anglo-Dutch group in 2015, and over claims Shell undercounted its oil exports.
The court documents indicated that AITEO is seeking compensation over what it described as poor condition of the pipeline and associated lost oil sales. AITEO is also accusing Shell of deliberate improper metering of its oil exports from the Bonny Light terminal. It is seeking $2.7 billion over the pipeline deal plus $1.28 billion for lost oil sales, the court documents show.
However in a deliberate effort to further drag Shell, the indigenous oil company on Thursday at a World Press Briefing as monitored on ARISE News, accused Shell of “spreading false information relying on the differences in figures between NNPC and DPR are in tune to have produced as much as it lost while tweeting the data for more reliance to be place on the NNPC data”.
In a letter read by one Tochukwu Ohazuruike on behalf of the council, Shell was accused of “taking over the business pending the outcome of the matter in court. Shell and the lender appealed the judgment of the matter but has since abandoned their appeal since November 18, 2018 that the court has transported from the High court to the court of Appeal”.
Tochukwu who is the Lawyer representing Consortium of Lawyers and Human Rights Group, added that “Shell has not taken any other step and today is 18, March 2021. Exactly 4 months after the transfer of the records. The explanation the show’s that the data shown for NNPC production and DPR varied in some cases as much as 10million barrel difference. This action falls flat on its face as the difference in figure only represents the stolen crude by shell and the total figure are consistent with a toned claim of what is missing while NNPC reports crude mentioned at the Bonny terminal operated by shell.
He added that “DPR reports actual production that followed to the terminal. In normal circumstances the difference between NNPC AND DPR figures are to be best marginal but today, the difference in the two figures rose to as high as 12m barrels”.
Hitherto, further findings by Heritage Times showed that most of the youth groups who endorsed the statement against Shell, are not duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, and have been used constantly under the guise of ‘Nigerian youths’ to achieve personal gains by stakeholders.
Some of the groups who endorsed the statement as monitored by Heritage Times are: Middle Belt Youth Council, Oduduwa Youth Assembly, Ohaneze Youth, and the Niger Delta Council of Youth.
Others are African Centre for Human Rights and Justice, Consortium of Lawyers and the Arewa Consultative Movement (which has no business in oil producing areas).
Reacting to the litigation against it in February, Spokesman for the Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, said the allegations are “factually incorrect”.
“SPDC is working to secure an expeditious discharge of the freezing injunction, which we believe was obtained by Aiteo without any valid basis,” he said.
