Latest revelations from the Onne Oil & Gas Free Trade Zone, home of Atiku Abubakar’s Intels Nigeria Limited have shown that business activities in the zone are now in their lowest ebb.
In the last two to three months, Intels has come under serial attacks of not less than four federal agencies starting with the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) and Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA).
The cumulative effects of the attacks have forced not less than 16 foreign companies to leave the zone and the economy with thousands of jobs lost.
It was not clear if the coordinated attacks have a hand in Abubakar’s recent dumping of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) even though his new party direction is yet to be unveiled in his home state of Adamawa.
However, the serial closure of performing businesses in the Onne Oil & Gas Free Trade Zone, which translates to loss of jobs has forced workers of the massive facility to petitioned the office of President Mohammad Buhari over what they described as perceived high handedness of the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) by the Managing Director of the Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA), Mr Umana Okon Umana.
The workers claimed that the perceived politicising of the FTZ by Umana has led to the decline in business activities of the FTZ as some operators have indicated interest to exit the FTZ while others have already left.
The petition dated 27th of November, 2017, signed by Austin Akoma on behalf of the Concerned Workers Forum of the Onne Oil and Gas Free Trade Zone, and made available to Business Hilights noted among other things, that “The utterances of the OGFZA Managing Director has created chaos and uncertainty in the FTZ, thereby leaving many expatriates to live in fear and trepidation”.
“With all sense of respect and humility, we write to update your Excellency on recent worrisome development at the Onne Oil and Gas Free Trade Zone, which is capable of bringing the zone to its knees, wipe out the jobs of over 10,000 Nigerians who earn their legitimate living from the zone and negatively affect the economy of Nigeria.
“The Onne Oil and Gas Free Trade Zone was founded over 20 years ago and has since grown in leaps and bounds. At its peak, the zone was home to about 200 companies, providing jobs to over 24,000 Nigerians. These numbers have however reduced to less than half due to the economic recession in the country, and also mostly due to the unguarded utterance’s and ill-advised activities of a politician turned OGFZA Managing Director, Mr Umana Okon Umana.
“Successive managements of OGFZA worked very hard to position the agency as the premier agency of government responsible for promoting, securing and sustaining investments in the nation’s oil and gas free zones.
“The story is however different under the present OGFZA management because the disposition of Mr Umana Okon Umana, since his appointment in September 2016 after losing the Akwa Ibom Governorship election in 2015, runs contrary to the roles, functions and visions of the founding fathers of the zone. Turning OGFZA and the Onne FTZ into a political battlefield against a perceived political foe is not only unfortunate but alien in the history of the zone.
“To be precise, the unguarded utterances of Mr Umana and the imposition of frivolous charges by OGFZA under him is already taking its toll as some operators have dumped their free zone licenses with several others, who are our employers, getting set to exit the zone. To make matters worse, Mr Umana’s imposition of charges has been selective. For instance, the land charges he imposed on operators at the Onne and Warri Free Zones were not imposed on other free zones, thereby creating an uneven playing turf for investors.
“Mr. Umana is acting like an Emperor at the Onne Free Zone, riding roughshod over his perceived subjects and making nonsense of much-taunted incentives instituted to attract investors to the zone. These incentives include unlimited time limit on cargo storage, zero Customs duty, unlimited expatriate quota, indefinite storage and sales period of goods, zero import and export licenses, reduction in overall project costs and investor-oriented policies.
“It is clear that Mr Umana lacks the administrative ability and temperament to manage a national asset like the Onne Oil and Gas Free Trade Zone and superintend an agency like OGFZA.
“We, therefore, most humbly appeal to your Excellency to relieve Mr Umana of his duties as he has proven to be unfit to administer OGFZA or promote the free trade zone. This attitude has resulted in a dip in government revenue from the oil and gas free zone by more than 60% within the past one year”, the Concerned Workers Forum of the Onne Oil and Gas Free Trade Zone averred.
