No fewer than 12 armed policemen on Thursday invaded the Julius Berger Camp in Kubwa, Abuja to eject 7,000 purportedly disengaged workers from the camp.
The Coordinating Secretary of the workers, Gbangbala Sunday, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.
Sunday said the policemen arrived at the camp on Tuesday in two buses with registration numbers KWL 233 FP and YAB 944 GW.
He said the police had been harassing the workers purportedly laid off by the company in 1999.
A NAN Correspondent, who visited the camp, reports that efforts to speak with the policemen seen at the camp proved abortive.
Sunday said the affected workers challenged and won their purported lay off at the lower court and the Court of Appeal in Kaduna.
He said the company appealed and the matter was pending at the Supreme Court.
He said Julius Berger approached another court, which declined to hear the case because the action was pending at the apex court.
The coordinating secretary said two eviction notices from the Chief Magistrates’ Court, Wuse, Abuja dated March 21 and June 13 were pasted on the quarters.
He said the company had on December 13, 2012 wrote a letter for out-of-court settlement, proposing N30 million as final settlements, which the workers rejected.
The workers reply through their lawyer stated: “Our clients have carefully and dispassionately reviewed your proposal and discovered that your offer of N30 million to put it very mildly, inadequate.
“As same cannot even cover the transportation expenses of our numerous clients for attending court sessions in respect of the subject.
“It is fundamental to note that our clients have not been paid any of their entitlements.
“If at all, they even withdraw their pending cases and appeals, and pretend to accept that they have declared redundant, one may ask, are they not entitled to some form of terminal benefits?”
But, Moses Duku, the Head of Media Relations Unit of Julius Berger, denied the invasion.
Duku told NAN: “Every morning we use to have brief, but to the best of my knowledge there is nothing like that and as the head of the media relation I should know.
“This place is where our staff has been living since 1999; my driver who drove me today lives there with his wife and two children.
“Then, how do you think of such a thing.
“Our company has an image to protect, we are human, we cannot just wake up and start sacking families.”
Also, DSP Ali John, attached to the Kubwa Area Command, said he had visited the camp and everything seemed to be normal.
John told NAN that even people residing around the area told him there was no problem.
NAN.
