The Ebonyi State House of Assembly Committee on Public Petition, Justice and Judiciary has issued an instant warrant of arrest for the director of First Patriot Company, Mr Obia Alio, over alleged damage of property and insensitivity to the plight of the host community.
The committee chairman, Innocent Nomeh, made the disclosure when they paid an on-the-spot assessment to Enyim Agelegu Ndufu Alike following a series of petitions filed against the First Patriot Company, formally known as Royal Salt Company Limited.
In a petition written to the committee by the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Mr Romanus Okemini and Elder Clement Mgbebu lamented the high-handedness of the management of First Patriot Company, as its blasting activities always left them in agony of material and human loss.
They equally expressed dissatisfaction over the way the company has been using military men to subdue their complaints in the face of the destruction of their farmlands, buildings and properties, including the poisoning by the exhumed minerals, which allegedly has left many dead.
The people then resolved that inasmuch as the company is no more beneficial to them than envisaged, they should leave their land.
The Catholic priest-in-charge of Holy Rosary Catholic Church, Rev. Fr. Augustine Ovia, said the damages done to the church building have rendered it unsafe for worshippers as all the walls and roofs are either cracked or caved in.
The chairman of the committee, Innocent Nomeh, representing Ezza North West, lamented the extent of the damages done to the farmlands and buildings, most especially the church which is just a stone’s throw from the blasting site and ordered the immediate arrest of the director of the company following his refusal to appear before the committee on several invitations.
Nomeh said that from the scenes on ground, the First Patriot Company has failed to provide the safety measures as contained in the Mining Act and has not fulfilled its obligations to the host community, but rather decided to turn a deaf ear to their plights.
The House committee chairman maintained that he met a suffocating situation on the ground, where the mining activists by the company have rendered the majority of the villagers homeless and subjected them to perpetual fear.
He urged the villagers to maintain peace and remain calm, and that Ebonyi State government, led by Governor Francis Nwifuru, would find a lasting solution to their plights.
The member representing Ikwo North in the state assembly, Mr Ifeanyi Nwakpa, who’s from the area, said that efforts have been taken on personal grounds for the company to ameliorate the sufferings of the people but the plea fell on deaf ears and assured affected persons of getting justice.
The victims, including Romanus Okemini and Clement Mgbebu, who said that their buildings had been shattered to their foundations, appealed to the committee to help them out by making the company do the needful.
When contacted, the liaison officer to the company, Mr Marcelinus Chukwu, said that the company is good at dribbling them as both farmlands and buildings have been destroyed.
Meanwhile, the town’s union president of Enyim Agalegu, Mr Oboke Chukwu, said that the company is not straightforward in its dealings with the host community and requested that they quit the village.
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