The announcement that Bayelsa United and Halkin Exploration and Production Limited have signed a new jersey sponsorship agreement for the balance of the 2023–2024 NPFL season has been deemed humiliating by the Bayelsa State Government.

The government said that it was unaware of any such arrangement involving the state-owned team and that it neither sanctioned nor sponsored such an agreement during the current football season in a statement sent out on Wednesday by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Daniel Alabrah.

Our correspondent learnt that Halkin Exploration and Production Limited had been at the centre of the controversy surrounding the alleged acquisition of Oil Mining Lease 46 (also known as the Atala Oilfield) belonging to the Bayelsa State Government.

In April 2020, Governor Douye Diri had opposed the revocation of the OML 46 licence by the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources, insisting that the oilfield was “a prized asset of the state.