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Groups petition minister on alleged anti-workers’ posture of BATN

By Edu Abade
04 July 2017   |   3:41 am
Some former employees of BATN had accused the company of deliberately exposing them to hazards of tobacco that led to sicknesses and poor health, after which their appointments were unceremoniously terminated.

Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige.

Allegations not true, says company

A Coalition of civil society groups under the platform of the Nigeria Tobacco Control Alliance (NTCA) has petitioned the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige requesting his intervention in alleged anti-labour practices at the Ibadan factory of the British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN).

Some former employees of BATN had accused the company of deliberately exposing them to hazards of tobacco that led to sicknesses and poor health, after which their appointments were unceremoniously terminated.

Most of them now live with strange ailments that have defied medication and constitute a strain on their finances. The company was also accused of consistently sending the sick workers to particular hospitals whose services are solicited to cover-up their injuries even though documents showed that the same workers were in good health before they joined the company.

The ministry had set up an investigative team comprising its officials and some groups who met the aggrieved ex-workers on February 14, 2017, and subsequently visited the factory to see things first-hand.

Unfortunately, more than four months after that visit no report of findings has been made public. Reacting to the development, the NTCA on May 30, 2017 petitioned Ngige to wade into the matter to ensure that findings from the investigation were made public.

NTCA Board Chairman, Akinbode Oluwafemi said: “While we appreciate the minister’s unrelenting efforts at speaking against and stemming anti-labour and inhuman practices in industries, we are worried about the strange silence on the BATN issue.”

Oluwafemi stressed that Ngige owes the ex-workers, current workers and Nigerians a duty to ensure that any unwholesome practices, which has violated the workers’ rights was not allowed to go unsanctioned.

By exposing workers in its Ibadan factory to inhumane working conditions and terminating their appointments, the BATN had breached the Nigerian labour laws, the NTCA said and urged the minister to rise to the occasion by using his good office to demonstrate that impunity by corporations in Nigeria was unacceptable.

It said findings of the investigation at the Ibadan factory of BATN be released to the public domain and that the Federal Government probes its activities with regard to its engagement with workers and farmers.

It also wants the hospitals that manipulated reports on the health status of the workers identified and the perpetrators brought to book. “If the report is confirmed, BATN should be appropriately sanctioned and asked to compensate the affected ex-workers whose health have been severely impacted by exposure to tobacco leaves and sudden termination of their jobs” Oluwafemi added.

Meanwhile, Taofeek Alabi, who spoke to The Guardian on behalf of the sacked workers, said the issues have not been resolved by the BATN adding that the company claimed they were asking for too much.

“To make the matters worse, BATN never made any offers and the management kept denying that they doctored our medical reports in collaboration with the Meddury Medical Services in Lekki, Lagos. But we are taking our case to the Industrial Court soon,” he said.

He named his colleagues to include: Awe Ayodele; Dada Ezekiel; Shina Makinde; Deji Dasilva; Winston Ofulue; Hammed Hassan; Nejo Oladele and David Jokonola. Others are Segun Kolawole; John Oma-Nalo; Julius Adelabu; Yemi Oduola; and Femi Olanrewaju, with two others who had taken their case to court.

Responding to NTCA’s claims, Lawrence Amaku, who spoke for XLR8, Public Relations Consultant to BATN, said the groups’ allegations were not true.

His words: “The NTCA and Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) claims against my client are false and malicious. This campaign of calumny is attention seeking and consistent with their modus operandi and should be disregarded.”

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