The management of BUA International Limited has accused Dangote Group Plc of sending false information to the public relating to the dispute between it and BUA, and claiming that they were coming from the Federal Ministry of Mines and Power, when in reality the information are fabricated. In a statement yesterday, in which BUA accused Dangote of acting out of desperation, it raised the alarm over alleged new set of publications, actions and tactics by Dangote Plc and its staff which have been falsely attributed to the Federal Government, seeking to achieve what they couldn’t get through legal means or their “connections in Government”.
The statement read in part: “We therefore wish to draw the attention of the general public, investing public and other stakeholders to these new set of malicious and misleading information which are in fact, being cooked up in the offices of Dangote Plc.
These publications have, at various times, been falsely attributed to pronouncements made by the Federal Government represented by the Ministry of Mines. BUA is now in possession of emails amongst other documents detailing a calculated attempt by Dangote Group to discredit and undermine BUA’s operations whilst painting a false picture to their stakeholders and the general public.”
The statement further stated: “In addition, whilst the Dangote Group in their diatribe published in Thisday Newspapers of Friday, December 22, 2017 made various assertions to being the victim of an alleged media campaign against them, some of the evidence available to us (some of which we deem too offensive to share in public domain) proves otherwise that they have in fact been the primary aggressor.”
The statement stated that BUA remains in possession of the mining areas covered by its mining leases 18912 and 18913 in Obu, Okpella, Edo State and despite Dangote’s concerted campaign at misinforming the public, ”BUA continues to exercise its rights to operate the licenses in line with the court’s pronouncements that status quo be preserved.”
It also disclosed that despite Dangote’s insistence that there is no court pronouncement that status quo be preserved, transcripts by their lawyers from the latest court deliberation at the Federal High Court sitting in Benin on December 5, 2017, show that the courts not only insisted that status quo be maintained but also sternly warned the Minister and the Ministry of Mines from taking any actions that will undermine its pronouncements on maintaining status quo.
