That is not correct, Sir. Respectfully, that is not correct.

Well, for the love I have for the kingdom, I am not the project manager but I’m the MD of the company. You know it is the custom in Bonny that whenever a company comes into the island the palace will nominate some officers which include the CLO, transport officer, chief security, the personnel manager; I think about five or seven names from the palace. And no company has the right to say no. Even when the company has any reservations about a particular name they can only plead with them and say, Oga, abeg make una change this particular name; and replace with another name; maybe, because of bad record or something else. And the company will be on the begging side not as of power. Now, when we got into Bonny after homage and everything has been paid and we were awaiting the list of the officers to come from the palace, which was the practice and which we were very well aware of.

But before I continue, I need to say that Evomec is a peace-loving company. Evomec is a community-loving company. Our relationship with every community where we have worked is always cordial. And that is why our job has been on even in the restive Niger Delta region. And our records are there for anybody to go and check up, for the records.

Sometime in October, a list came from the palace; and you will agree with me that any letter that has a letterhead, it means that it is an authentic list from the palace. Now there is this practice in Bonny. Before now, that any list from the palace has automatic clearance and does not go through (employment) bureau clearance. You are aware of this fact, right? It has automatic clearance. But when we got into Bonny, they said no, that has changed. Any name coming from the palace has to go through the (employment) bureau. And don’t forget that it is the palace that appointed the bureau chairman, am I correct?

So, we were now waiting for this list to be cleared, which was the first list that contained nine persons or thereabout and the clearance came through some weeks back. Now, while waiting that list to be cleared, another list came with palace letterheaded paper; and this time around it was sent to my Whatsapp, and I said ahh! This kind of document cannot be sent through Whatsapp and we have a project manager at the site. Normally, they would bring and we sign a copy for them. So, I forwarded it to my project manager. Unknown to me that it was even another list, I didn’t even look at it. I said maybe, they have sent all that to my project manager. But my friend, I won’t mention his name, now said that no, this one is different from that first one you got. So, I said but the first one has palace letterheading, meaning that the palace has endorsed that one.

The first one was signed by Chief Attoni but the second one, I can’t authenticate the person’s signature. It was sent by Whatsapp and even the area where the signature is was not there. It is like they put it on top of a table and snapped it. And normally, when you snap with a phone that is not too good or whatever, the picture would be blurred, it won’t be clear. We were still deliberating on that…and I told my project manager that as soon as (employment) bureau people clear these names please employ all. After all, it is the same Bonny people that would be employed. It does not take away anything from us. Let us employ all. We don’t want to question why there is a first list or why the second list came. After all it is the same Bonny people who are our brothers and our friends. So, where we would have been paying for seven or eight people, we will now be paying for sixteen. That is extra cost on us but let us shoulder it. We don’t want to be caught in the middle of this crossfire. And like I said up till yesterday 9am the second list has not been cleared from the bureau.

Now yesterday, while waiting for the list to be cleared some people now came to the gate and my project manager tried to talk with them. Last week, I said this is December; everybody deserves to eat Christmas rice. I directed that they collect the account number of all those people let us add the incremental for the month of December. And all the account details were collated and we pressured to pay them by Friday afternoon. If they have not received the money yet by Monday morning they will receive them. I mean all the officers now. I said let me do that at my own cost. Then yesterday, my project manager called and said some boys came and blocked their gate and said we did not honour the palace list.  They have collected their account details and they would be paid their salaries for this month of December. So, if somebody says sit in your house and I will be paying you the same salary I am paying the people that are working I suppose if it were me I will go and do small thanksgiving. I will say thank God for this salary.

So, based on what we were told, one Idamina Tobin was saying that Tobin House was not recognized. I don’t know how true but I’m quoting from what I was told that they were not being carried along and that His Majesty’s list was not respected. I was surprised and like: who told him His Majesty’ list was not respected? That these people are on salary and that anybody who is going to work, what are we working for? Is it not because of salary? And they have been added on the salary list. Don’t forget, let me clear one fact. Don’t forget that until NLNG sends them to BIRC and they are cleared, they will not be inducted and until they are inducted they cannot come and work for us. That is the standard there. We did not make the rules. We are following what is on ground there.

Lo and behold, yesterday, around 10.30am or thereabout, we now got the second list, that is the list from His Majesty, we now got the clearance yesterday, around 10.30am, and it was backdated to 4th of December but the question you want to ask here is that the employment bureau chairman, for example, is appointed by the authority, and it is the authority that is sending these names to us. Why were these names not cleared long ago and sent to us for us to send to NLNG for NLNG to schedule them for induction? To me, it is an internal problem within them. We just saw an opportunity for us to stand behind the list and ensure it is implemented. Who is Evomec not to respect His Majesty’s letter? His Majesty is my friend, my brother, my mentor; he is somebody I have so much love and respect for. If we didn’t want to honour the list why did we collect their account details to be paid? We even included Christmas bonus on the salary. So, what have we done wrong here?

Yes, of course. Evomec, like I said earlier, Evomec is a peace-loving company and a community-friendly company. If not that the new law allows for any company that is coming to have their people cleared by the bureau before induction, these people would have been inducted a long time ago.

You can see how big Nigeria is and this job we are doing has always been done by foreign companies and they will employ very few persons and within one month they will wrap up the work and go. But now, your own company has come. Even if there are issues, we expect somebody to write and say Evomec this is our issue. We give you one week to iron out this issue. But we have not received any kind of letter, whatever. We don’t disrespect authorities. We are a peace-loving company. Evomec is community-friendly company. I lived in Bonny for 18 years. I married my wife there and had all my four children there. Let me tell you that I am a Bonny man. Very soon I will be adding Bonny name to my middle name, either Hart or Brown or Jumbo (laughs). The kingdom is one. Even my safety coordinator at the site is from Jumbo family. We have also been giving supply of diesels and other logistics to indigenes as part of our corporate social responsibility. The job we are doing is just to carry sand, it is not like we are doing fabrication work where we need a lot of materials to work with. You will see all those heavy duty vehicles. Those are the trucks we need to carry these materials. We have hired busses from people in the community as well. As I told you earlier, Evomec is a peace-loving company and community-friendly company; we will not do anything that will jeopardize the peace of the community. We will rather build on the peace we already have in the kingdom so that there will not just be a smooth operation for Evomec but everybody will also be at peace. You will also agree with me that any attempt to satisfy everybody is also an attempt to failure. But if there are grievances…take for example now, Idamina Tobin said, from what I heard, that he was not put up to the speed and that Tobin House was not recommended; but from the list sent from the palace, two names from Tobin were inside.

No, no, no. Let me also dissociate my company from the incident. We did not ask anybody to go and fight anybody there. No, we did not. And Evomec will never do that. I cannot ask my first son to go and fight my second son. At the end of the day, I am the father of both boys. It is just like you take a knock on your head and at the same time on your knees, it is the same body you have knocked. So, Evomec will never be a party to divide and rule. No, no way. We are not. From what we were made to understand, some people went there to block the gate and they have this agreement in place that before you go and do anything, come and tell us before you go and block. You cannot just go from behind to go and block any gate. So, in the first instance, they have violated the existing rule. Maybe, that was why the whole thing turned out the way it did. So,

Evomec will never do a thing like that. And Evomec will never do that.

As a matter of fact, we have our community liaison people, number one; and we have the man who is managing the project. From what we were told, one of the chiefs called the project manager; you know when you have a project manager, he is the man managing the project. He is the father of the project. Except when there are certain decisions to be taken that they will call my attention to ask for my input; the project manager has the responsibility for that project. So, when he was called, from what I was told, you know that day was very tense and that could not be the best time to move around any how. You know because of the tension everywhere, there was a security advice in the negative so he could not go.

No, no, no…that will never happen. How can we do that? Even if it was in the middle of the night and there are no security threats, we would even swim from Port Harcourt to Bonny to attend any meeting to which we were invited. Evomec believes so much in relationships and relationships will increase your resources. And Evomec is well aware of this fact. We need the kingdom to do our work successfully and peacefully. We did not come to divide, we came to add to the peace that is already existing. Anything that will add to the peace in the kingdom that is what Evomec will support.

One thing you should take note is that Evomec is a peace-loving company. Evomec will never do anything to disregard the throne. I am a titled man; I am crowned in the palace. So, I know what the royal institution means. Even if His Majesty orders that Evomec trek from Port Harcourt to Bonny, I will jump out of my bed immediately without dressing up. I am just trying to describe the kind of respect we have for constituted authority. And outside that, Evomec respects people, no matter how small and how lowly they are. Even if His Majesty sends three more names today, the only thing I can say is “Yes, Sir!” we came to Bonny to add and not to remove. We came to Bonny to prepare the ground for other Nigerian companies who have capacity to deliver high quality jobs in the construction industry in Nigeria. Also, we are looking at organizing heavy duty equipment training for the kingdom. This is heavy duty equipment training for the operators as part of our corporate social responsibility. The idea is whenever we come to Bonny to work we have to go and hire people from outside Bonny because we don’t have enough hands in Bonny. But now Evomec wants to change that so that as train 7 is coming they will not just be asking for labour, labour, labour. They will now be asking for skilled people. That is part of our programme to build the capacity of the people of the community and we have also made it known to the authorities. And you know that no company has done this before. Evomec wants to start this and continue with it because of the love we have for the kingdom. Like I said, we have come to Bonny to add and not to remove.