Comrade Ighowho Odibo, a foremost Youth Leader from Udu Local Government Area of Delta State, is a private businessman and contractor with many companies including the Delta Steel Company, Ovwian-Aladja, Delta State. He spoke on reasons for hate speeches in national discourse, his experiences as a contractor with DSC and his soured relationship with the company. Excerpts:

What are your comments on the position of Federal Government on the question of hate speeches in national debates and discourse under the present administration?

When we talk of hate speeches, we should be able to properly locate the reasons behind the agitation, exchanges, and complaints which aggregate hate speeches in Nigeria. People are angry and this is the foundation of most of the complaints and when the angry ones express their grievances, hate speeches become unavoidable. Take for instance the relationship between Contractors of former Delta Steel Company and some federal government agencies which is brewing serious tension among stakeholders.

Take for instance our experience in the hands of Global Steel Holdings Limited, the former investor in DSC, Ovwian-Aladja, Udu Local Government Area of Delta State, with whom some of us did business as members of the Udu Contractors Association since about 2012. The issue is that when Global Steel had problems with the running of the company, AMCON, a federal government agency took over the company and put it into receivership.

One Chief A. A. Aribisala was the receiver manager and we thought he would address our plights and clear the indebtedness to contractors as expected. We had our hopes raised to high heavens when Aribisala came up with a position, demanding for proof of claims against the company. The contractors rallied themselves together and complied, supplying every necessary document to prove that we did business with the former investor and how much we were being owed. We went to Lagos for the verification and provided convincing proof of what we are being owed.

Besides the debt, we also prove to Aribisala that contractors’ equipment, like caterpillar, forklifts, cranes, excavators etc, which were either leased to Global Steel or deployed to do business with the company, were still in the company yard. We demanded release of our equipment pending when the debts would be paid. Aribisala did not comply with our demands. We presented proof of ownership of those equipment yet, nothing was done to address the matter until government changed hands with the coming of another receiver Manager called Joseph Nwubike, SAN. We did another verification exercise with the new Receiver Manager to ascertain the level of indebtedness to us yet till date nothing has happened.

So what have you done since the coming of the new investors to ensure you get your equipments back?

We have made PMSL to understand that our heavy duty equipment are trapped in the yard. One major concern is the information that Global Steel’s indebtedness to most of the banks in Nigeria which gave loans to the company and were suffering as a result of the non-performance of the loans, have had such debt cleared on the intervention of AMCON.

Our pain is that if AMCON could settle the loans from the banks, why not pay our money? Why allow the contractors to suffer undue pains, deprivations and avoidable trauma in the hands of banks, from which we took loans to do jobs for the old DSC whereas the loans, taken by the company directly from the banks have been cleared?

The debts owed to gas suppliers etc have been cleared yet contractors like us, commoners, who sourced for fund from different sources apart from banks are being subjected to daily pressures over AMCON’s or the federal government’s insensitivity to our plights. We have been told only assets and not liabilities were sold to PSML. We have also approached the interface committee set up by the Delta State Government, led by Chief Moses Odibo, yet no reprieve till date. In the midst of all these, can hate speeches be effectively curtailed? PSML have been around for two years and our equipment are still there.

Some of the contractors are dead now, others are at hope suffering seriously. Former PG of Ovwian Community, Michael Tobi, one of the affected contractors is seriously in pain because of the development. Abraham Jewho, is also at home nursing avoidable pains, and government is talking of hate speeches. Some of the contractors can no longer send their children to school, some of their children have gone into prostitution. How can one survive in the midst of such social and psychological trauma? We voted for change in 2015 but the change has only succeeded in visiting sorrow and pains on the people. Nothing to celebrate about and hate speeches is unavoidable in such a situation because such speeches come from frustrations.

Have you approached the Udu leadership to help find solutions to your plight?

We have gone round the whole of Udu, praying for intervention of the leaders but what we have come to understand is that many have been intimidated into submission and all we hear is that their hands are tied. As we speak, the Ovie of Udu Kingdom, HRM Owhorhu 1, who also did business with the former investor, is helpless. Our representatives in government at both States and National Assemblies seems helpless too as the Bureau of Public Enterprises may have infiltrated some of them to look the other way while we suffer.

No help is coming our way. We borrow money to do business with DSC. Some of the equipment were sourced from third party and they are on the neck of the contractors. Some of the contractors have sold buildings and other landed property to offset the debt owed individuals and banks. It has been a terrible nightmare. How do we survive in this kind of frustrating situations? Do they want us to go into ritual killings and yahoo business? This is how the likes of Evans, the popular kidnapper started because of frustration.

What is government asking our children to do? Can they be patriotic when their parents, who sought legitimate business, were frustrated while the bad boys are making it? We as contractors paid all our taxes to government as we did business with DSC. This certainly is not encouraging. The Federal government is only pushing us to embrace vices to make it in life. Who will pay the demurrage that has ran into billions of naira from the equipment trapped in the company? Where do we start from? Who will come to our aid?

What government personality have you approached to help in your situation?

We have written several letters. We wrote to the Delta House of Assembly, the Senator for Delta Central, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, and we have also written to Mr. President about the matter asking for their intervention in this matter, but nothing has happened. How can our equipment be trapped for five years and nothing is being done. We issued a 30-day ultimatum to PSML and protested against the new investors so they could intervene but our protest was aborted by security officials. We are being frustrated on all fronts.