Energy Group Chairman and billionaire businessman, Jimoh Ibrahim has sacked the Managing Directors of his media companies over unpaid salaries of workers.
At a public lecture on the Energy Group 5th GMD Conference, aired live on AIT on Monday, unpaid journalists of Newswatch Newspapers, Newswatch Magazine and National Mirror Newspapers had stormed the ongoing conference holding at NICON Luxury Hotel, Abuja, demanding the payment of their 13 months’ unpaid salaries.
Displaying placards, asking Ibrahim to clear the unpaid salaries , the journalists, under the aegis of Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, sang protest songs and took over the venue of the conference.
The chanted solidarity songs, insisting that Ibrahim address the salary issue before the conference could continue.
Ibrahim, who could not hide his anger midway into the conference, continued to blast company heads who could not generate their own money to pay salaries despite heavy investment in the business.
The first to get the axe was the MD of Newswatch who was sacked on TV in a very dramatic fashion.
Visibly under tension, the bosses of the newspapers in the conference knew there was trouble. And trouble eventually came when Ibrahim, suddenly, verbally appointed one the directors in the conference as new head of the Newswatch.
Subsequently, he announced that he would help to pay some of the companies owing six months salaries but on the condition that the Managing Directors and Deputy Managing Directors of the companies step aside.
He stated that any of his companies that does not pay up all salaries owed by December 31, 2016, will be shut down.
Ibrahim, however, announced that the affected bosses should forward their resignation letter via email before they get termination letters from him.
