Controversy over the ownership of Obajana Cement Company raged on yesterday with the Kogi State Government challenging a claim by the Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) that it solely owns the plant.

The government said the facts at its disposal show otherwise.

In a statement, the government maintained that Obajana Cement Company was solely founded in 1992 and owned by the state, which held 100 per cent of its shareholding in trust for the people, long before DIL ventured into the state and longer still, before Dangote Cement Plc came into existence.

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Addressing Dangote Group’s advertorial, titled: “Separating Facts From Fiction”, the state alleged that it had always challenged the Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) and Dangote Cement Plc (DCP) to prove that they paid anything for the purported acquisition of Obajana and its alleged 100 per cent ownership, “but each time, DIL and DCP have woefully failed to do so”.

In the response titled: “Separating Acquisition From Asset-Grabbing”, Kogi State said it took a loan of at least 15 million Deutsche Marks to conduct feasibility assessments, which confirmed the existence of those ‘vast limestone deposits’ that DIL found so enticing years later.

It posed five questions for DIL and DCP.  They are:

• How come years after DIL and DCP’s claim that they acquired 100 per cent of the equity and assets of Obajana Cement Plc, Kogi State officials were still listed as shareholders of the company, holding shares for and on behalf of the people of Kogi State in filings made by DIL and DCP at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC)?
• Is the above not evidence that DIL and DCP which do not deny that Kogi State invited them to invest in Obajana Cement Plc in the first place, are lying….by claiming that Kogi State allegedly abandoned her allotted shares and was subsequently kicked out of the company she founded by them, thereby allegedly extinguishing all rights and interests of Kogi State and her people in the operations of the company?
• By what rules of corporate acquisitions or even buy-outs are DIL and DCP operating in their highhanded dealings with Kogi State and its people?
• At what point were DIL and DCP able to raise money and Kogi State Government not able to raise money to take up their allotments, resulting in the alleged transfer of Kogi’s shares in Obajana to DIL/DCP?
• Which money or consideration did DIL provide in 2002 for the alleged acquisition of the 90 per cent equity in Obajana Cement Plc, which used to be vested in the Kogi State Government and what money or consideration did DIL and DCP pay in 2003 to acquire the remaining 10 per cent of Kogi’s shares in Obajana Cement Plc?”