- The African Action Congress (AAC) condemned the killings
A tragedy occurred at the Sumal Food Company, also known as Yale, in the Oluyole Industrial Estate, Ibadan, Oyo State, where policemen allegedly shot and killed three workers.
According to SaharaReporters, this incident happened on Monday during a protest by workers demanding unpaid palliatives.
The African Action Congress (AAC) condemned the killings in a statement issued on Tuesday by Oyo State chairman, Kayode Babayomi.
“Let us stand in solidarity with our fellow workers and rise to the occasion, comrades,” a staff of the company said.
Narrating the unfortunate incident, the staff who spoke on condition of anonymity identified one of the staff shot dead as one Mr Phillips whom he said was in the year three category and a full staff.
He said, “The problem is that there’s money that is supposed to be paid to workers and they (referring to the company management) have not been paying it. Normally they usually do annual percentage increments. So, since last year they were supposed to do a 20 percent increment but HR only did six percent remaining 14.
“They now said you have already signed for the palliative, why are you not paying since last year? Every worker knows that they’re supposed to be paying palliative to workers.
“So, on Saturday they (workers) told management that since the company had increased the price of their products, and other companies which increased prices of their products had been paying palliatives to their workers, Yale should not be different. The workers told the management that they would protest against it on Monday.
“On Monday being yesterday, before the workers could come to work, they had deployed policemen everywhere. So that morning, the management changed the memo for contract staff; instead of N200 per day, they increased it to N500 per day.
“Meanwhile, the 20 percent increment in salary was for the main staff. It is only the full staff that got the six percent. Even the additional 14 percent the workers were agitating for was going to be paid to full staff and not to the contract staff.
“So because of the protest announcement, they wrote the memo so that the contract staff wouldn’t join the protest so that everywhere would be calm. The management now stated in the memo that the palliative is not for the workers, that they are not under labour.
“That the workers are not under the Labour and therefore, they are not entitled to palliatives, the source said, adding that this angered the workers the most.
“During the protest those policemen they (management) brought started harassing the workers. They shot teargas canisters at the protesting workers and that incident scattered the people. Then they (Police) started shooting live bullets at the protesters.
“They shot one person, called Phillips dead. I saw his dead body and later I heard they killed two more people. But I am sure of one person I saw his body. I just know the person as Phillip, he is a staff in year three. All the staff including the contract staff joined in the protest and it was largely peaceful until police started shooting them,” the eyewitness staff narrated.
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