ENL Consortium Limited, the company handling the Ibadan circular road project said it has uncovered plan by some elements to destroy its equipment on site.
Its chairman, Prince Adesuyi Haastrup, alleged the government of being behind the move, saying that it was part of the reasons Seyi Makinde, governor of Oyo State, is proceeding on a one-month vacation.
The company, Haastrup explained, has expended over N3.9bn of its personal funds for bush clearing, compensation to land owners, asphalt laying, networks and rock blasting, warning that it remains the legitimate contractor of the project.
The 32 kilometre East End Wing of the 107-kilometre proposed Ibadan Ring Road, popularly known as the Ibadan Circular Road as stated in the terms of the concession agreement of August 25, 2017.
ENL was granted exclusive rights to design, finance, construct, operate and maintain the Ibadan Circular Road for a period of 35 years, on a build operate and transfer basis.
Only recently, the court order restrained Craneburg Construction Company Limited, the new company handling the project, from continuous work on the site of the circular road.
But it was widely reported last week that Craneburg hasn’t stopped work on the site as a journey to the site of the multi-billion naira project at Egbeda last week by journalists confirmed the development.
Nonetheless, staff of ENL Consortium Limited are still on site, with their equipment.
But in a statement Friday morning, Adesuyi said that “We have uncovered plan by the agents of the state to attack our facilities on site. So we want to alert the public about this development. We have spoken through our lawyers and we are not going to back down. We are the contractor and concessionaire for the project. We will not allow any back door arrangement. We will use any legal means to seek redress.
“The governor is traveling out on vacation. Our facilities would be attacked and the governor would use the opportunity of his vacation to feign ignorance of the development. It is a game plan and we are alert as we have been informed. We will not be blackmailed into stopping the project. And that is why we have approached the court. Our fence must not be demolished under the guise of anything. None of our equipment must be tampered with.
“We are not lawbreakers and because we have a long years of track record of competence and integrity. You recall that Justice J. Enobie Obanor of the Federal High Court, Abuja judicial division, had, few weeks ago, issued a restraining order against Craneburg Construction Company Limited, the Oyo State Government and three others; Fadi Khalil, Mohammed Abdul and the Attorney General of Oyo State, restricting them from interfering with our activities of ENL Consortium Limited on the East End Wing of the proposed Ibadan Circular Road.
“They should stop further interference, disturbance, trespassing or any other action or conduct in like manner in our business,” he said.
“We will only leave the site when the money we have expended on the project has been paid. Apart from the money spent by us on the project, the 10 per cent of the total contract sum should be paid and we will move out of site. Without that, the state is just compounding the woes of the state. The government is denying tax payers the enjoyment of quality projects.
“We learnt on good authority that within few weeks of illegally awarding the contract to the new company, the government has paid N20 billion of the tax payers’ money to the company. Imagine, this was a project that was supposed to be self-financed; money that the state should have spent on some other projects.
Saying that interfering in the continued delivery of the project by ENL Consortium is denying the good people of Oyo State new lease of life, Adesuyi, however, added that they are committed to delivering the project and managing for the number of years signed in the agreement.
