The war between the Dangote Cement PLC and the Kogi State Government has taken yet another turn as certain groups from both the private sector as well as students of Kogi Origin are lobbying the conflict.
In recent shift, while a group of shareholders in nigeria accused the State Government of deploying a bullying tactics to force the company into submission, indigenes appraised the government in implementing stricter measures against the Dangote Group, pledging to support the contention of the ownership of the cement plant even to the Highest courts of the land.
While reacting to the development, the President of the Association for the Advancement of the Rights of Shareholders, Dr. Umar Faruk, criticised the state government for shutting down a company providing employment opportunities and economic empowerment for the local community of Obajana.
He said, “Why should the governor of a state in Nigeria, mobilise vigilantes to seal a publicly quoted company? The same Governor did exactly the same thing to First Bank, making the bank close some of its branches in the state. Is that not executive rascality, using the state assembly to commit such an atrocious act?”
Similarly, founder of the Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria and President of Boys Brigade Nigeria, Sir Sunny Nwosu, said the state government ought to have deployed diplomacy and due process by using judiciary means to bring the company to book rather than resort to extra-judicial means.
According to West Africa’s first Chamber of Commerce, the attack was a reflection of the poor handling of investment protection issues in the country.
The statement read in part,
“The invasion of the Dangote Cement Factory by youths that led to the shooting of factory workers is unfortunate, ill-construed, and avoidable. We advocate a win-win situation for businesses and the government. We will therefore call on all parties to exercise caution and be protective of jobs, assets of production, and government revenues from corporate organizations like Dangote Cement Factory.”
However, undergraduates, under the aegis of the National Association of Kogi State Students, have thrown their full weight behind the state government.
In a statement signed by the National President, NAKOSS National, and Chairperson, Council of 36 States Student Presidents (CSSP), Rachael Mojirola Balogun, the students alleged that the Dangote Group had, for long, carried out devastating economic injustice on the people of the state.
According to the natives of the state, drawn across tertiary institutions of learning in the country, the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, and the state House of Assembly should be commended for insisting on correcting what they described as “the age-long economic intimidation and exploitation by the Dangote Group.”
