Dr Reuben Jaja, is the Chief Executive Officer, BFI Group Corporation. On December 3, the corporation once again obtained judgment at the Supreme Court of Nigeria as the rightful owner of ALSCON, the aluminum manufacturing plant in Akwa Ibom State. In this interview, Jaja speaks on his dreams for the plant and how BFG intends to create over 2400 jobs there.
The Supreme Court has once again affirmed your ownership of the Aluminium Smelter plant in Akwa Ibom State. So how do you resolve the controversial Share Purchase Agreement with the Bureau of Public Enterprise?
We have a share
purchase agreement that has been negotiated. We have executed it and we
have given it to the BPE, which they have not signed. We are now going
to court to compel them to sign. The BPE, on October 8 this year, gave
us a 58-page document which stated the purchase price as $250 million.
We accepted and returned it.
They acknowledged it, sent us letters
and we discussed it. There are documents to that effect. As far as we
are concerned, that share purchase agreement that they sent to us is the
mutually agreed share purchase agreement and the court should compel
them to execute this agreement.
What is the physical state of ALSCON now?
Between
when we first got judgment and now, there has been absolute
vandalisation of the plant. We have seen the host community of ALSCON
intercepting truckloads of vandalised items and things stolen from the
plant. We have had local engineers as well as the workers union there
complaining bitterly about the vandalised accessories. We intercepted
the transfer of ALSCON tanks to a neighbouring company and forced it
back. They gave us reasons that made no sense. We see this as a
conscious effort to strip the plant and sell all parts to whoever is
ready to buy. The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly even passed a
resolution begging the federal government to come and rescue the plant.
Even
at the Supreme Court, the justices advised us to enforce retrieval
fast, otherwise we would be taking over a complete carcass.