By Olubori Oduntan
Operations at the headquarters of Ikeja Electric Plc were shut down by some protesting members of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) on Wednesday morning.
Business Post gathered that the demonstrating workers were picketing Ikeja Electric over the alleged disengagement of about 40 members of the union.
Recall that last week, the electricity company announced the promotion of 299 personnel on its payroll, adding that in the past one year, it had recruited over 500 new employees into its workforce.
According to Ikeja Electric, the promotion exercise cut across all cadres of staff, including members of the respective unions in the organization.
But at the protest today, the union claimed some of its members were dropped from the company, noting that it was not happy with the development.
They claimed the demonstration was to express their grievances over the issue.
However, reacting to the protest in a statement on Wednesday, Head Corporate Communications at Ikeja Electric, Mr Felix Ofulue, questioned the motive for embarking on the protest which he described as self-serving.
The spokesman emphasised that the recent separation of staff was due to varying actions which are not in furtherance of the overall company objectives.
“When NUEE chooses to cripple socio-economic activities of over a million households, for issues that can be resolved through dialogue, one then wonders if the motives are as selfless as they claim.
“How do you plunge a country’s commercial nerve centre into darkness because of a few of your members who have been separated from the business for cogent reasons? It is really appalling. It’s an abuse of privilege to picket,” he submitted.
“Imagine that our employees in Alausa Injection Sub Station were chased out of the facility by the union and they had to shut down nine Feeders that supply power to Ikeja and its environs on safety grounds. This has resulted in an immediate blackout for at least 3000 customers,” Mr Ofulue concluded.
However, he apologized to customers for the disruption of service by NUEE and promised that they will continue to work with stakeholder to ensure that the company continues to improve and provide quality service to our customers.”
