Youths of Odagbo village, a coal host community in Ojoku district of Ankpa Local Government Area Thursday prevented a mining company Koyla Energy Limited from operations at their site during a peaceful protest.
The youth alleged that the company reneged on an earlier agreement with members of the community on issues of employment, and said the company would not be allowed to continue mining on the site.
Video footage from the scene of the protest as recorded by one of the villagers showed about nine or ten Toyota Hilux and a Hiace bus driving out of the road after they were prevented from entering the mine site.
“They are coming for a work interview to employ outsiders (non indigenes of Odagbo). So the community refused,” a 31-year-old Abdullahi Ibrahim who took part in the protest told the 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE on Thursday.
He said the company was employing people of other communities, “while our boys are at home. Our land is being destroyed, no good road, no good water to drink.”
Ibrahim, who is one of the applicants, claimed that the company’s human resources official insulted members of the community, which provoked the youths.
“So, the community went on a peaceful protest and blocked the road, insisting that the HR manager must leave or no work in the site, and our youth must be employed,” he said.
Another youth who took part in the protest, Ayuba Umar, told 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE that koyla had destroyed farmlands belonging to some of the villagers which caused the lawmaker representing Ankpa/Omala/Olamaboro Federal Constituency, Ibrahim Abdullahi Ali Halims to appeal to the Federal Government to intervene on behalf of the host communities.
Umar also said “we had agreed with the company that they would employ our people, but it failed citing lack of qualification of our people as reasons, among others.”
Acting Chairman of Odagbo Community Development Association (OCDA), Odagbo branch, Alhassan Ako Shuaibu said “the community is in agreement with the company that it should employ our youth, but it has failed to do so.”
The spokesperson of the company, Jibrin Ogohi, who confirmed the incident also agreed that there was no way any company would operate in a community without considering members of such community for employment.
“There is no way we can deny the people of Odagbo job opportunities if they are qualified,” Ogohi said. He said the issues would be amicably resolved.
Ogohi said, “being a mining company, there are technical aspects involved, there are categories of employment such as casual, full time, skilled and unskilled, we will consider them for all these.
“We will conduct oral and practical interviews. We will call for their papers and scrutinize them before the practical interview, if they are qualified, definitely we will consider them.”
Koyla Energy Limited has acquired a substantial parcel of land and paid compensation to farmers whose lands fall within the area acquired by the company.
Ogohi told the 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE “that there is no way that we will acquire their land and not give them job opportunities. How are we going to operate if we don’t work with them?”
On the community’s altercation with the HR manager, Ogohi said, “for what you did not see or hear, there is nothing one can say, but we are going to interrogate the Human Resources manager to hear from him.”
21st CENTURY CHRONICLE learnt that coal, in commercial quantity, was discovered in the village in 1956, but mining only started 10 years later. In 1967 during the Civil War, mining stopped at the Nkalagu and Onyeama coal mines, and the federal government could not access it to move federal troops through the railway to continue the war.
