The protesters among their demand was that their communities should be connected to the gas turbine powering the Jones Creek platform, stressing that the communities had been in darkness for almost a decade.
They chanted solidarity songs in the Ijaw language, vowing to make real their threat to shut down the flow station after the three-month ultimatum handed operators of the place if their demands were not met.
Some of the placards they carried read: “NPDC JV No light, No Operation, Give us light”, and” Okerenkoko Community is tired of darkness.” Give us light.”,”Let there be light in Okerenkoko”, and “Enough is enough of darkness.” And several other inscriptions.
Some of the protesters who spoke to the media said they would continue the protest until their demands were met.
“It is light issue that brought us here. As we are here if darkness is sweet, they should shut the flow station so that we will stay in darkness with them.”, one of them, Ms Ene said
“We are not supposed to be in darkness. The highest we are giving them is, three months we should have light day and night. “, she added.
“We’re suffering. We don’t have drinking water. Only if rain falls before we can get water to drink.
“The situation has affected the Nigeria Maritime University, NMU. Students now go about in search of where to charge their mobile phones. Students can no longer study as many are leaving the town already. We are suffering again because there’s no network from telecommunication providers. The JV operators have refused to give us light. Please, give us light or we shut you down completely”, another female protester said.
Some of the protesters recalled that at a time they relied on community efforts to power a plant they had.