No fewer than five companies operating in Sapele, Delta State, have been given ultimatum to quit the area within 14 days or risk forceful shut-down by residents following the companies’ alleged refusal to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with the community, for over a decade.
The companies asked to leave the area are, Sapele Power Plc, National Independent Power Plant (NIPP), Ringadas (aka, ASCA), Nigeria Gas, Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHCL) and Life Flour Mill.
They were asked to “leave the area or, in the alternative, enter into concrete MoUs with the community, if they choose to remain beyond 14 days.”
In separate letters to the companies by the community Chairman, Mr Patrick Akamovba, among other executive members, the community alleged that the companies have “Failed to employ our indigenes.”
The residents also alleged that the companies have “refused to give scholarships to the children and contracts to the adults of the community.”
The people insisted that the companies have failed to fulfil their corporate social responsibility to them, “particularly in the area of school structures, road, water and electricity, even as some of the companies generate electricity in the area.
“The ultimatum which is deemed to have begun on August 16, will lapse on August 29. If by that day, they don’t move out and don’t enter and sign MoUs with us, we shall mobilise everyone in the community, including the youth and women, and protest to their premises and shut them down’, he added.