By CHARLES IWUOHA

Consolidated Ebonyi Quarry Owners Association has shut down its operations following the arrest of its chairman Chief Chikaodiri Ojemba.

According to findings, Ojemba, was arrested on Saturday by police on instruction of agent company over his refusal to remit government money into a private account.

Speaking to our Correspondent on Wednesday, at the quarry site Ezillo in Ishielu local government area of the State, Mr. Mbam Sunday, told our reporter that they are not ready to function until their chairman is release unhurt.

According to him, their interest is to support Governor Francis Nwifuru achieve his heart desires of lifting the State out of poverty and as such, will not allow any individual to defraud the State of its generated revenue from the mining site.

Also, Mr. Emeka Nwodom, who also frown at the unlawful arrest and detention of their chairman by the Agent company called on Ebonyi State Governor Francis Nwifuru, to intervene and facilitate the release of their chairman that was unlawful arrested.

According to him, quarry owners will never allow imposition of Agents in their mining site.

“Quarry is a solid mineral in the exclusive list of federal government and as such, we cannot accept any imposition of Agents.

“Our chairman called usfor a meeting and there we resolved that we shall not by any means, pay our money to any individual account but Government account only, so that our governmentwill get exactly amount of money generated from the mining site but regrettably, on Saturday , we heard that our chairman was arrested by the Agent company that has been forcing themselves on us maybe because it is owned by a highly place person in the South east, they want to intimidate us.

“I want to assure this people to be ready to arrest more because we from Ebonyi are ready to sacrifice everything to see our state money is not transferred to anyone personal account.

“As you can see, we are not operating today because we don’t know the whereabouts of our chairman, if he is alive or not, and we shall not operate until we see our chairman, “ he said.

He then called on Governor Chief Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru, to intervene for the growth and good of the state which he is putting every effort to rebuild.”

However, efforts to reach the agent company allegedly owned by an Anambra business mogul, Arthur Eze, was not fruitful.

When contacted, he Special Assistant to Governor on Solid Mineral, Chief David Ajah, urged the quarry dealers to be calm promising that Governor Francis Nwifuru would attend to their problem.

"Whoever that arrested their chairman will release him because our Governor is not a crisis Governor. I want to urge them to embrace peaceful dialogue to settle the crisis than shutting down the business operation which will affect economy of the State.”