By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The management of BUA Group has said it was no longer interested in the 50,000 hectares of land allocated by the Kogi State government in 2012.
Recently, the Kogi State House of Assembly ordered the conglomerate to appear before it or risk losing the piece of land. The state parliament alleged that the company failed to compensate land owners as agreed.
In a statement on Tuesday, BUA Group the state government could revoke the Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) as the land cannot serve the purpose it was acquired in the first place.
According to the firm, since the land was allocated to it about 10 years ago, the state government has failed to develop the area by providing basic infrastructure like roads and security, making it unattractive to investment.
“Since their invitation by the state government in 2012 to invest in the state through the land, no visible effort by the state government and its successors to address issues of access to the land,” BUA Group said in a statement.
The organisation further explained that it had not been able to use the land because of recurring security challenges around the area, adding that the terrain of the land, after a feasibility study, would not be able to serve the purpose for which BUA intended.
“We conducted feasibility on the land and found out that only about 30 per cent of the entire land mass is suitable for investment, with the rest consisting of rocks, hilly and undulating areas which are not suitable for its intended purpose,” the company said in the statement.
Business Post reports that this development is coming a few days after the Kogi State government went after BUA Group’s competitor, Dangote Group, over the ownership of the Obajana Cement factor in the state. The federal government waded into the issue and ordered the immediate reopening of the cement plant.
