By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
A group under the aegis of Conference of Benue Journalists (CBJ), has condemned Dangote Groups over poor Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the communities around the Benue Cement Company (BCC) in Gboko, Benue state.
The group in a statement yesterday in Abuja, therefore called on the Chief Executive Officer of BCC, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, to compensate the community members who have been victims of adverse company policies, and adopt environmental safety practices to curb the industrial pollution that has ravaged farm lands which have been sources of the people’s livelihood.
The group, which said there had been sheer absence of a CSR code in the way the cement company was managed by the company stated: “We have observed with utter sadness, the excruciating pain and untold suffering of the peaceful and hospitable communities around the Benue Cement Company since Mr. Aliko Dangote and other investors assumed the management of the premium limestone manufacturing company more than a decade ago.
“This apartheid-style subjugation of some of the most accommodating people in Nigeria, smacks of willful callousness, capped with a corporate policy that prefers to dehumanize, humiliate, impoverish and render a community with a high literacy level, jobless and distraught, as they are either denied even the lowliest of jobs by the company or the highly qualified among them demoted to undeserving positions.
“We urge the management of that company to also halt immediately, the occasional brutalization of members of the communities around the company and the seeming indifference of the Federal government to the plight of these long-suffering people.
“Even as we wish the management of the company success in its operations, we insist that it doesn’t continue with a sinister corporate policy that profiteers at the expense of the lives of the communities around it. We also do not encourage a resort to violence, as it is the case in the Niger Delta, but we strongly warn the BCC management to desist from its current managerial style”.
