A group under the auspices of Conference of Benue Journalists (CBJ) has decried the suffering of communities around the Benue Cement Company (BCC) in Gboko, Benue State.
The group in a statement , urged the Chief Executive Officer of BCC, Alhaji Aliko Dangote to compensate the community members who are victims of adverse company policies and adopt environmental safety practices to curb the industrial pollution that has ravaged farm lands and worsened the poverty of the people there.
The group regretted the sheer absence of a Corporate Social Responsibility code in the way the cement company was managed by the multi-billionaire businessman, Dangote.
“We have observed with utter sadness, the excruciating pain and untold suffering of the peaceful and hospitable communities around the Benue Cement Company since Mr. Aliko Dangote and other investors assumed the management of the premium limestone manufacturing company more than a decade ago.
“This apartheid-style subjugation of some of the most accommodating people in Nigeria, smacks of willful callousness, capped with a corporate policy that prefers to dehumanize, humiliate, impoverish and render a community with a high literacy level, jobless and distraught, as they are either denied even the lowliest of jobs by the company or the highly qualified among them demoted to undeserving positions.
“We urge the management of that company to also halt immediately, the occasional brutalization of members of the communities around the company and the seeming indifference of the Federal government to the plight of these long-suffering people.
“Even as we wish the management of the company success in its operations, we insist that it doesn’t continue with a sinister corporate policy that profiteers at the expense of the lives of the communities around it. We also do not encourage a resort to violence, as it is the case in the Niger Delta, but we strongly warn the BCC management to desist from its current managerial style.
We also call on Governor Samuel Ortom, our new TOR TIV, Professor James Ayatse and traditional and political leaders in Benue State to rise in condemnation of the plight of these communities and force an end to the suffering of the people living around the Benue State Company.
The leaders should also adopt measures to end the continuing blood letting in Agatu, Gwer and several other communities all over Benue State.
“If we don’t move fast to address the unhindered killings in communities of Benue, we might as well forget the hope of any food security and all other hopes of improving the Agriculture sector, and be ready to welcome hunger and grinding poverty in the near future”, the group advised.
