In a bid to solve the lingering issue of payment of groundbreaking between the landlord communities of Ayibeku Oil Palm Limited, Akamkpa LGA, the deputy Governor of Cross River State Rt. Hon. Peter Odey, has met with communities’ representatives in Calabar.
The meeting on Tuesday which had in attendance the former speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly Mr. John Gaul Lebo, was to ensure that the sharing formula which was the bond of contention is resolved peacefully and amicably for the communities and the company to be happy.
Hon Odey while advising the communities to go back and meet and agree on the sharing formula and sign, he also asked the company to withhold the money until the communities ensure that there is agreement so that if any of the party is in breached of what has been agreed the law will take its cause.
His words:
“My advice to the company is don’t release the money yet. Let the landlord communities meet and agree on the sharing formula and sign.”
“There should be an agreement so that if any of the party is in breached of what has been agreed the law will take its cause,” Odey said, “Be considered as well don’t look at the size of the money but look at what you have contributed.”
Going memory lane, he continued, “You have agreement that was signed in 1976, the agreement also state the area of land that belongs to Ayibeku communities. So leave that one for another day today is not when we would talk about dispute.”
“We want to solve this issue peacefully and we want both the community and the company to be happy,” he said.
Earlier the Chairman Ayibeku Palm Oil limited Mr. John Gaul Lebo, said that they were not in deputy governor’s office to settle boundary dispute or land demarcation among the various communities.
Mr Lebo the former speaker put it to the landlord communities that it was their own responsibility to trace their traditional boundary lines.
On the contribution of the the five communities and their land holdings, Lebo said the company has a perimeter of over 4 thousand and that the federal government gave them the design and map showing conversion of Rivers, valleys between one community and another.
According to him, The issue of payment for groundbreaking is not coming up the first time he said they had in the past dealt with this issue before he came into the board.
“The first time was in 2013 and we go to the communities and say to them please send us the names and account of the various communities for payment, those names were sent and signatory of all of the accounts,” he explained.
“Somewhere along the line we did fixed the payment when the company asked for confirmation,” Lebo thought, “one or two of the communities went and said we should not pay the money because some of the signatories were not of the communities.”