Business
Monarch Alleges Sabotage On PABOD Breweries
Worried by the spate of unrests and agitations among youth that is linked with operations of Pabod Breweries Ltd, Eze Geshorm Bekwele Odum, the traditional ruler of Oginigba Community in Obio/Akpor local government area of Rivers State has alleged that the disturbances were a plot by some brewery companies in Nigeria to sabotage the only Rivers Sate-owned breweries.
Making this known to newsmen in his palace in Port Harcourt, Eze Odum explained that it has become very annoying to observe that some breweries in Nigeria are working against the reactivation of the Pabod Breweries, which now produces the Grand Beer and the Grand Malt as well.
According to the Monarch, whose community, Oginigba, plays host to Pabod breweries in Trans Amadi Industrial layout, he and his community are not happy over what the company is passing through at the moment in terms of youths restiveness, adding that they are trying to calm the youths, even though it was alleged that the actions of the company are provocative.
The royal father also pointed out that such sabotage and marginalisation are the reasons for the unrest and agitation in the Niger Delta region which amnesty deal was the fall out.
Eze Odum expressed unhappiness over the many breweries in Nigeria which are not facing the kind of problem that the Pabod breweries are facing, pointing out that the beer market in Rivers State is not only for drinking, but is also for employment creation for the youths, as well as create other vacancies for vendors and other distributors of the products.
The traditional ruler alleged that one of the breweries antagonising Pabod breweries has no distributors in the entire Trans Amadi where he resides, and can not even boast of about 20 distributors in Rivers State, and recalled how he wanted to be a distributor to the said company, but that all efforts failed.
He, however, urged the breweries to emulate and borrow a leaf from the old generation banks that are not sabotaging the new banks, if their industry must operate successfully in peace.
Corlins Walter