HOST COMMUNITIES OF 2ND NIGER BRIDGE PROJECT SHUT DOWN JULIUS BERGER IN ANAMBRA

BY SUNNY A. DAVID

Host communities of the 2nd Niger Bridge, project located between Onitsha, Anambra and Delta States, on Monday shut down activities at Julius Berger Construction Company Office, Bridge Head Onitsha, Anambra State in protest against what they alleged was failure by the company and its Project Director Mr. Fredrich Wieser to keep to the agreement reached with them.

Speaking through some of their Community Liaison Officers, the communities accused the Project Director of high handedness, refusal to keep to the local content agreement with them and racism in the discharge of his duties.

The ten host communities, five from Anambra State, namely Onitsha, Obosi, Okpoko, Harbour, Odoekpe, and Oko Amakom, Asaba, Idoko Madu, Power Line and Okwei, from the Delta end, warned that Julius Berger workers were not welcome in their communities unless the disagreement was resolved.

Displaying placards with inscriptions: “Wieser must go he is arrogant” “The Project Director is a racist, “Project Director does not respect the host community” “Host communities are not baggers” “Julius Berger does not respect the terms of the MOU with host communities” among  others, the protesting host communities, who were joined by some of the workers, alleged that they had been subjected to dehumanising treatment by the Project Director and his foreign counterparts.

Addressing newsmen, one of the Community Liaison Officers, Mr. Peter Okafor, said the ten host communities, wanted the Project Director to leave Onitsha and should be replaced by someone approachable and could handle the communities with respect

“He sacked almost 90 percent of indigenous workers, both skilled, semi skilled and unskilled workers contrary to our local content agreement and has been employing his friends and foreigners, we are supposed to be given contracts like supply of sand, stones, and other small contracts as contained in the local content agreement, but he has refused to honour the agreement”, Mr Okafor said.

Corroborating Okafor’s position, Liaison Officer for Onitsha Community and Adazi Ogulani of Onitsha, Chief Chuma Agbakoba and his Delta State Counterpart, Mr. Henry Enebeli, said Wieser must leave for work to continue otherwise work must stop on the 2nd Niger Bridge.

According to Chief Agbakoba: “We are not saying that work should stop on 2nd Niger Bridge, but we are saying that the Project Director Mr. Wieser must leave, he does not have regards for the host communities and does not have manners of approach to the communities and above all, he exhibits racist behaviours and we can no longer tolerate that.

For his part, Mr. Enebeli said, “some of our communities cannot access their homes in Anambra and Delta States, they have blocked our roads with sand and we have been begging and writing the Project Director since July, to instruct his men to clear the heaps of sand so we can access our communities, but he ignored us, we use Canoe to move in our areas now.

“We appealed to him to instead of sacking our people for redundancy because he is saying they are not working because of rains, he should give them stood off so they can start when the rains are over but he refused,” Enebeli added.

When contacted, the Federal Controller of Works, Anambra state, Engineer Ajani Adeyemo, said he had tried to intervene in the face off which started about two weeks ago to no avail, pointing out that the demands of the host communities were cumbersome.