Okitipupa oil palm laments N300m loss to EndSARS protests

The Okitipupa Oil Palm Company Plc (OOPC) has decried arson attack on the corporate headquarters of the company in Okitipupa, the headquarters of Okitipupa Local Council of Ondo State.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company, Taiwo Adewole, who disclosed this after a tour of the company’s burnt and vandalised facilities, yesterday, described the action as barbaric, brutal and horrendous.

Adewole, who insisted that the damage was carried out by organised enemies of the company, with the hidden agenda of grounding it and returning it to the moribund state it was nearly 10 years ago, said the management and all members of the Board of Directors were devastated by the sad development due to the ruinous act on the company.

According to him, the company was just being salvaged from the destruction unleashed on it by undue government interference, inept and corrupt management over the years.

The CEO added that the management was planning to set up a team to ascertain the level of destruction because of the wanton damage and pillage on the facilities.

He said: “There are certain items and consumables whose values cannot be easily quantified in terms of buildings and physical structures burnt and those carted away. I can put the loss at about N300 million.”

Adewole, therefore, urged security operatives and government to help track down perpetrators of the mayhem, with a view to bringing them to justice.

He also appealed to the people in the area, particularly the youths, to avoid the agenda of destroying or hurting the company.
is first and fore-most hurting the economy of the youths, who constituted more than 85 per cent of OOPC’s employees, the local economy being the only industry in the whole area and finally the state’s economy.”

The OOPC boss noted that “this company with all its plantations scattered across three local councils in the state, is a commonwealth in which all residents are either stakeholders or shareholders and beneficiaries one way or the other, and to that extent, everyone has a moral duty to protect all its facilities, including the plantations.

“Any act of vandalism against OOPC is an indirect attack against the well-being of youths earning their living through the company as employees, including their direct and indirect dependants.”