Youths in Koluama, Southern Ijaw local government area of Bayelsa State, which hosts oil giant, Chevron, on Tuesday demonstrated at the firm’s Community Development Foundation office in Yenagoa, the state capital, to protest alleged neglect.

The youths from the community numbering about100 stormed the foundation’s office carrying placards and singing solidarity songs to demand payment of compensation for the January 2012 oil rig blowout in the area..

In a similar incident on September 2014, youths from the Koluama 2 had laid siege to and occupied the North Apoi oil platform operated by Chevron over the compensation issue.

It took the intervention of the Commander of Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta, Emmanuel Atewe, a Major General, who brokered a meeting between the youths and the oil firm, for them to vacate the facility.

Spokesman of the youths, Stephen Ebrasin, said the latest protest was to draw the attention to the hardship suffered by the communities from the explosion and the company’s failure to clean up the affected area.

He said that the people of the community were angry that Chevron had failed to pay compensation to them for the explosion and also because it had not carried out any development project in the communities as previously agreed.

“The foundation has also not convened annual general meeting for the past two years where we are supposed to present our development needs, the foundation has abandoned us and we are here to find out why,” Ebrasin said.

Chevron’s communications & public affairs manager, Sola Adebawo, said he needed time to react to the situation but he had not made the firm’s position known as at the time of filing this report.