Chi Limited gives details of incident in the company during Yuletide

The management of Chi Limited has reaffirmed its commitment to the welfare of its staff, stating that the incident that took place on 30 December, 2016 in the company’s premises was unfortunate.

In a statement, it stated that in 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.

As a result of this incident, management 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 over-powered 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.

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. The second injured worker was subsequently referred to a teaching hospital and was conveyed there in the company’s ambulance. Sadly, he later passed on.

As an organisation that places high premium on human life, the death is immensely painful to us. Management immediately sent a delegation to condole with the family of the deceased.

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.

We are currently engaging with all parties and stakeholders to better understand what went wrong and address any related issues.

Efforts of Business247 News Online at  speaking with company union leadership for their views on the matter was abortive at the time of filling thus report.