Defying cries and pleas of communities spread across four local government areas of Okpokwu, Ohimini, Otukpo and Ado in Benue State, the Dangote Group of Companies continues, in greater ferocity, the strip mining of coal that may have left in its wake endangered thousands of residents; National Record’s Onah L. Iduh and John Ameh report.
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At the moment, the organisation is undergoing a double-barrelled investigation. While one panel was instituted by Dr Ngige following his alleged approval of President Muhammadu Buhari to suspend NSITF’s Managing Director and Chief Executive, Mr Adebayo Somefun, three Executive Directors and other top management staff; another probe is concurrently ongoing at the House of Representatives.
While it took organised Labour and the federal government exactly six months to agree on the consequential adjustment for federal public workers on October 18, 2019 after a highly belligerent negotiation process; in many states where the governors are effectively in absolute command and control of every process, the consummation of the new minimum wage has remained unimplemented and in limbo due to several roadblocks mounted by the governors.
In the suit pending before Justice Essien of the National Industrial Court, Lagos Division, the plaintiffs, Comrade Abiodun Philip and 29 others, accused the defendants, Comrade Oyelekan, who is the National President of NUFBTE and 17 other national officers of the union of perpetuating themselves in office despite the expiration of their constitutionally allowed two terms.
Our findings indicate that not only was the commissioner absent, the House said it is not aware of the dire situation posed by the pollution of some key sources of water by Dangote Group of Companies. The House also said it has also no schedule on its agenda for today to see the Honourable Commissioner for Water Resources and Environment.
The Saga of the polluted waters of many communities in Edumoga District of Okpokwu Local Government Area of Benue State continues as its youth, under the aegis of Edumoga Youth Movement (EYM), take up the fight to confront Dangote Group of Companies even as the Benue State Government braces to take sterner action against the company.
Comrade Oyelekan’s third term as President of the union reportedly lapsed in December 2019 when the union was billed to hold its delegates conference. Some members of the union who obviously had become tired of him, and outraged that he was subverting the constitution of the union to perpetuate himself in office, in January 2020, wrote a petition to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chairmen Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Labour and the Nigeria Labour Congress.
The implication of this is that the poisoning of Rivers Okoolo and Umabe by Dangote Group’s mining exploration poses dangerous health challenges for far greater population beyond the about 30 rural communities who for generations have directly depended on them as their only sources of potable water.
While the litigation is likely to endure even to the apex court notwithstanding the outcome at the Court of Appeal, National Record findings reveal that head or tail, peace is unlikely to return to NCSU’s fold without serious intervention from the Nigeria Labour Congress along with its key affiliate unions and other stakeholders in the trade union movement.
For Benue’s working class, the past twenty years, and particularly the last couple of years have been a mix of neglect, despondence and tension in the context of their sheer abandonment by the state. For majority of pensioners, particularly the aged, the situation is akin to hell or purgatory – the period witnessed a harvest of deaths from among the state’s senior citizens who had dedicated their lives to public service at both the level of the state and local governments.