Host Community Claims: Finima Youth Congress May Have Lied – Investigation

The claim by the Finima Youth Congress (FYC) that Finima Community is the sole landlord to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG), Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), ExxonMobil and BelemaOil, among others, may not be true, Kristina Reports has found.

Fact-checks by Kristina Reports indicate that the claim may not altogether be as stated, given that the companies listed are located in different aspects of Bonny Island and hosted under diverse legal frameworks.

One of the claims is that Finima Community is the host of the NLNG, which Kristina Reports factchecked and found that the FYC must have banked on a judgment delivered by Justice Donatus Okorowo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Friday, September 15, 2023, in suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1419/2022.

The judge stated, in what was then regarded as a landmark judgment for beleaguered communities hosting oil and gas facilities, that the community where the operational activities of an oil and gas firm are taking place reserves the hosting rights in such circumstance.

The suit was adduced by the Brown Major House, as plaintiffs suing on behalf of themselves and the people of Finima Community, with the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG), and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), as respondents.

The FYC obviously, lost sight of the beneficiary scope of the said judgment given that the NLNG’s gas liquefaction plant is located on a parcel of land jointly leased to SPDC in 1958 by the Jumbo House and Brown House, both chieftaincy houses of Bonny Kingdom.

Shell had extracted part of the leased parcel of land and invested it as equity in the NLNG, an action that has been challenged in court by the Jumbo House.  

A Rivers State High Court, in suit number: PHC/2018/2017 delivered a judgment in favour of Jumbo House against Shell, declaring the ceding of the said portion of land leased to it by the Jumbo House and Brown House to secure its equity in NLNG as illegal.

Given the above scenario, the FYC failed to take cognizance of the fact that the extant legal framework upon which the lease is predicated makes both chieftaincy houses of Bonny Kingdom; Brown House and Jumbo House, the judgment’s beneficiaries.

Also, several communities in Jumbo Major House host the various gas pipelines delivering gas to the NLNG plant from different locations across Nigeria which form the company’s gas transmission system (GTS).

Aside these, the Jumbo Major House also hosts the waterwells and water delivery pipelines of the NLNG, thus rendering the claim as not totally true.

In fact, on Tuesday, June 25, 2024, the Jumbo Major House accused the Brown House of overreaching itself by sending its youths to mount a blockade at the H-Block of the Train 7 project site, stating clearly that the particular geographical location where the project is sited is on its own portion of the leased land.

Chairman of Jumbo Major House, Sodienye Jumbo told Kristina Reports then that the Train 7 project site is part of the land leased to Shell, asserting that the said protesters from Finima were trespassing on land belonging to the House.

“I wish to confirm that Train 7 sites is part of our (Jumbo Major House) land on lease to SPDC. On what I think about Finima protesting there, claiming it’s their land, I think they’re trespassing.”

He appealed to Finima Community, especially, the Brown House, which is a joint landlord with it on the SPDC land, to exercise restraint on the issue, advising on the need to shun avoidable crisis in the pursuit of what he termed “the mutual benefits of the Train 7 project”.

The Jumbo Major House also in a recent publication on Kristina Reports outlined the areas across Bonny LGA that are lands legitimately belonging to it, including the area where the Train 7 project is sited.

This position which has not been countered by either the Brown, Tobin or Attoni Houses, which are all part of Finima Community, has also been supported by the Chief and Head of the Dan-Jumbo Chieftaincy House, Se-Alabo Clinton Dan-Jumbo, Jene IV.

He stated that “I am fully in support of this position to the extent that the said land belongs to Jumbo House – Dan-Jumbo, John-Jumbo and Jumbo Major House – and not just the Jumbo Major House of Bonny.

Also, on Tuesday, June 15, 2021, both the Jumbo Major House and Brown House were invited to the groundbreaking ceremony for the Train 7 project, which held in Bonny, Rivers State, a move which reinforces NLNG’s recognition of both chieftaincy houses as its hosts.  

Additionally, the delay in the constitution of the host community development trust for Shell and NLNG is due to the stand-off between the co-landlords, Brown House and Jumbo House and Bonny Kingdom on the nomenclature and constitution of the board and trust.

The NLNG has also stated on its website that Bonny Kingdom is its host community. It reiterated this position again on Monday, January 13, 2025, in a press statement it issued with regards to the suspended peaceful protest by Bonny Kingdom and signed by its General Manager, External Relations and Sustainable Development, Sophia Horsfall.  

Given the above findings by Kristina Reports, it becomes difficult to not view the claim by the Finima Youth Congress as misleading and a false claim.

Close watchers of the development, therefore, deem the claim by the FYC as unfounded and unnecessary, urging them to confine themselves to issues affecting the youths of Finima, instead of issues beyond their understanding.