Armed militants operating in parts of Akwa Ibom State have threatened that they will stage a second kidnap attack on expatriate workers of Aluminum Smelting Company of Nigeria, Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State.
The company is under the management of Rusal Nigeria Limited.
Our correspondent gathered in Abuja on Tuesday that the militants, who are operating under the guise of sacked workers of the company, had demanded the payment of their severance benefits after being laid off soon after Rusal, a Russian company, bought over the privatised company in February 2007.
The militants, according to reports, have sent letters to the management of Rusal and the Russian Embassy demanding the payment of their entitlements. They added that if the company failed to do so, it risked being attacked again by militants.
Six Russians, four men and two women working at the plant, were kidnapped in June 2007 and later released on August 8, with the key demand of the militants being that the outstanding entitlements of the disengaged workers be settled.
During the kidnap, the victims� houses were blown up.
In an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Tuesday, the Managing Director, Rusal Nigeria, Mr. Evgueni Emelianov, regretted that the non-payment of the benefits had begun to obstruct the company�s activities.
He stressed that the Bureau of Public Enterprises made certain commitments to the workers when it closed the plant in 2000.
According to him, �The BPE�s commitment to workers was one of the terms of UC Rusal�s purchasing the plant.
�These were reconfirmed when UC Rusal acquired the majority stake in the assets in February 2007.�
Expressing the company�s concern with the current situation around BPE�s obligations to ALSCON workers, Emelianov urged the bureau to settle its obligations.
�We are involved in resolving this issue only because it gets in the way of the planned operations of the UC Rusal-ASCON Smelter that should become the basis of the wealth of the employees, their families and the development of the whole region,� he added.
Emelianov reiterated that the militants had been warning the company to stop its operations at the Ikot Abassi plant if the disengaged workers� entitlements were not settled.
He pleaded with the BPE to pay the workers so that the militants would not have an excuse to attack the workers.
The workers have had a long-drawn battle over the entitlements, which had taken the parties to the Court of Arbitration.
Emelianov confirmed that Rusal planned to start production at ALSCON at the beginning of 2008 after seven years of dormancy.
�Once fully operational, the plant will create 1,900 local jobs and 90 per cent of the employees will be Nigerian citizens. Additionally, 20,000 jobs will be created through the development of infrastructure around the smelter, resulting in better standards of living for Akwa Ibom State residents,� he said.
He added that since the company acquired a majority stake in ALSCON, its investments over three years would total $150m.
ALSCON produced its first metal in 1997, before being fully completed. Production finally came to a standstill in 2000.
Dec192007