Chevron Nigeria Should Be Probed for Compromising Public Health – HEDA

By Our Reporter,

Popular rights organization, the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) has called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to probe oil giant, Chevron for compromising public health.

HEDA said the company’s decision to lodge 100 of its officials in a private hotel in Warri upon their return from abroad in the wake of Coronavirus global pandemic constitutes a great risk to Nigerian public health and security.

HEDA Chairman Mr Olanrewaju Suraju in a statement on Tuesday said the action of Chevron was a brazen assault on the integrity of Nigeria as a sovereign country.

“What Chevron did failed to comply with corporate responsibility standards.  It undermines the public safety rules and appears to portray Chevron as seeing itself above the laws and regulations of Nigeria,” Suraju said.

According to him, the action of Chevron compromised Nigeria’s strategic security as regards public health defence mechanism and Covid-19 response plan announced by the central and state governments.

“Chevron as a corporate entity; its responsible officials and the Management of the Hotel responsible for this assault on Nigerian laws should be made to account for their misdeeds. Nigeria needs to prove that no private oil company is bigger than the country, ” HEDA insisted.

On this score, HEDA called on the Federal Government through the Ministry of Justice to institute a probe into the incidence.

Suraju said it was necessary to know to what extent the health of the Hotel workers and those living in the neighbourhood had been compromised.

“We call on the Federal Government to institute a probe panel to determine the degree and extent that public safety has been compromised by Chevron. This has to be done to prevent future reoccurrence, ” Suraju said.

Chevron in media reports was accused of isolating 100 of its officials in Cyprian Hotels and Suites, a private Hotel located in Warri. The workers were suspected to have been exposed to COVID-19 following days of holidays abroad.

However, the Federal Government‘s rule is that suspected COVID-19 patients be placed in government designated isolation centres for ease of monitoring and tracking.

The Hotel in Warri is said to be owned by a retired Inspector General of police who was said to have forced his workers to return to work and attend to the Chevron workers, thereby exposing the hotel workers, their families and the entire State to possible infection.

The workers were said to have expressed deep worry about the risk associated with attending to the Chevron staff.

The Legal Adviser to the Hotel, Mr Omuli Iwere had said none of the workers exhibited COVID-19 symptoms.

Chevron had confirmed placing its staff under quarantine in Warri contrary to the rules of the Federal Government, National Centre for Disease Control and the State’s Ministry Of Health Guidelines.