The entire Ajao Estate community along Airport Road in Lagos where Chi Limited operates from has been thrown into a gale of uncertainty many days after men of the Ajao Estate Police Station acting on the invitation of the orange juice and agribusiness company shot and killed an employee and injuring another.
Our reporter who visited the premises of the company and spoke to neighbourhood people reported that most of the respondents expressed anger at the company and the police. A respondent and resident of the estate said there was no justification in the police shooting at people who were protesting for better reward system from their office.
“Even if they claim that the victims were violent and looted items from the company’s storehouse that does not justify their being shot by the police. This brutality must end. Why is it always easy for foreign companies especially those run by Asians to use our security personnel to intimidate Nigerians?” queried Mr. Emmanuel Njoku, a resident of the estate.
Most of the respondents charged the Inspector General of Police to prosecute the police men “who allowed themselves to be used to kill fellow Nigerians”. They demanded that justice must be done in this matter.
Meanwhile the management of Chi Limited has said that its staff that died of gun shot injuries on December 30, 2016 was fired at by the police during a confrontation between the police and workers who were allegedly forcefully taking company products as ‘Christmas gift’.
The company in a statement by Lawson Ovih of TPT International, media mangers Chi Limited, said, “We are surprised and saddened by this event because prior to this incident there had been no dispute between the company and its workforce.
We later learnt that some workers felt that there had been discrimination in the distribution of products of the company as Christmas gifts, and then decided without authorisation to take company products for themselves as their own Christmas gifts.”
It disclosed that on the evening of Friday, December 30, 2016, some workers succeeded in forcefully taking away several cartons of company products, damaging company property and endangering the lives of other personnel within the premises in the process.
It said that sequel to this, it decided to enhance security around the factory by reporting the case to the Nigerian Police Station at Ajao Estate, who responded by placing their men outside the entrance of the factory to avert any further looting.
“The night shift workers resumed work without any problems until around 4:30 am when some of them decided to stop work two hours to the end of the shift, switched off the lights and proceeded to cart away company’s products without authorisation. In the course of doing this, they attacked other personnel in the premises.
“The internal security personnel tried without success to persuade them to have a re-think.
When they overpowered the internal security men, the members of the Nigerian Police Force at the gate stepped in to bring the situation under control but they were also attacked by the rampaging workers,” it was said. It was further disclosed that in the course of the encounter with the police, two of the workers sustained gunshot wounds.
They were rushed to a nearby company-retained hospital for treatment. One of the injured workers is in stable condition in the hospital.
But the defence of the company has raised more dust among the residents of the estate and workers. They argued that there was more to the shooting than meets the eye, urging the police high command to investigate the activities of its men.
