Hon. Odey interfaces with Akampkpa community
Emmanuel Alfred
The Deputy Governor of Cross River State His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Peter Odey has met with representatives of Ayib Eku Oil Palm Ltd and the 5 host communities of Akamkpa LGA in Calabar in a bid to resolve once and for all the clash between the company and the community.
Addressing the 5 host communities (Okarara, Iku, Abung, Akor and New Ndebiji) in the meeting which held on Tuesday, 29th August, Rt. Hon. Odey advised: “My advice to the company is don’t release the money yet. Let the landlord communities meet and agree on the sharing formula and sign. There should be an agreement so that if any of the party is in breach of what has been agreed the law will take its cause,”
Hon. Odey directed the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Crop & Irrigation Development to facilitate a meeting with representatives of the host communities to enable them agree on a fair and acceptable sharing formula for the money received from the company. He urged the representatives of the 5 communities to complete that discussion and return with a signed document by all stakeholders. He said the directive was necessary because both the company and the community needed to be happy at the end of the day stating that a company that was paying hundreds of millions to both the government and communities should be allowed an enabling environment to make profit.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the Board of Ayibeku Palm Oil Ltd, Mr. John Gaul Lebo, who was accompanied to the meeting by the Managing Director of the Company, and other key management staff, praised the proactive approach of the Prince Otu-Led administration which had brought to an end the disagreement between the company and the host communities which had lasted over 10 years. He disclosed that the company had prepared bank drafts in the value of N108,000,000 for the host communities and hoped that the impasse that had kept the company from making profits for so many years will be put to rest immediately so that the community will begin talking more about more important development of social infrastructure like building roads and schools rather than ground rents.
Responding to a query from the New Ndebiji community about equity in the distribution of the money received from the company, Mr. Lebo said the company was allocating funds going to the communities based on the land holding as described in the map that the Federal Government had given to the company showing rivers and valleys between one community and another. While urging the communities to discuss amongst themselves about the boundaries if different from what was contained in the survey plan provided by the Federal Government.
In a prepared address by the Ayip Eku Estate Landlords Joint Council thanked the Government for appointing two of their children into cabinet positions in the state while urging the government to
The Joint Landlords called for government’s intervention to ensure that the company begins to actualize the purpose for which it was set up. The group said the community was still in dire need of infrastructural development despite policy directives by previous administrations to investors while calling on the company to examine the Corporate Social Responsibility model of other agro allied companies in order to perfect the same.
