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Construction workers march to Lagos gov’s office over sack of 500

By Wole Oyebade
23 July 2015   |   1:12 am
NIGERIANS working for China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) yesterday marched to the office of the Lagos State governor in Alausa, Ikeja to protest the sack of over 500 workers.
Ambode-KK

Ambode

NIGERIANS working for China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) yesterday marched to the office of the Lagos State governor in Alausa, Ikeja to protest the sack of over 500 workers.

The protesters, who stormed Alausa mid-day, also alleged several inhuman treatments, including high handedness, non-compliance to safety culture and failure to compensate injured or deceased workers, all against their Chinese employers.

It would be recalled that the Chinese construction company is one of the major beneficiaries of construction contracts awarded by the Lagos State government, Federal Government and many other state governments. CCECC is also currently working on the Abuja-Lagos rail projects among others.

The workers, numbering over 300, appealed to the state government to come to their aid and save them from “foreigners enslaving us in our own country.”

The protesters said that they had worked for the company for at least five years both as casual workers and permanent staff under “dangerous condition without safety materials,” which often lead to permanent disabilities and deaths of their colleagues.

Speaking in behalf of the workers, Mark Eze Okila, who has lost his full left arm while working for CCECC, said some of the workers were paid as low as N550 per day, “while the Chinese supervisors who do nothing but answer phone calls and smoke cigarette receive as much as N450, 000 monthly.”

Okila said they, however, got fed up with the company when their appointments were verbally terminated recently.

The workers demanded that the CCECC should pay them off at agreed rate of N600, 000 per casual worker and N800, 000 per staff.

Another protester told The Guardian that CCECC had a reputation of employing verbally and dismissing in the same manner too.

Besides, he alleged that the only occasion in which the company had compensated any worker was when one of them fell off from a slab and broke his waist. The victim got the sum of N1million for his permanent disability.

In their protest letter to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, signed by Okila and Muyideen Ola, the workers said a worker (labourer) earns N550 per day while a workman earns just N850 per day.

“We also have serious problems in safety and matters that always cause lots of accidents in the sites of the company. You will be given appointment without any safety induction certification and at the same time they give you work to do without any safety gadgets and that has been leading many workers to injuries of permanent disability and others even death in the process of working and nothing serious will be done about them.

“Now, it has comes to a point that the company is dropping its workers without any benefit after working with them for years, without any explanation to use as a backup. So, we are seeking your opinion for justice to be done over these matter for citizen’s right,” the petition read in part.

While receiving the workers in behalf of the Lagos State Government, Chief of Staff to the Governor, Samuel Olukunle Ojo, told the workers that the governor had been holding meeting with General Manager of the Lagos State Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA), Dayo Mobereola and management of CCECC over their issue.

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