Weeks after Rasheed Adewoyin* submitted his CV at the Dangote refinery’s security post, he was offered a job as a scaffolder at the fertiliser plant by an Indian company, Onshore Construction Company Pvt. Ltd (OCCPL), which was in charge of structural engineering, large-scale piping, and heavy equipment erections.

The company offered to pay him ₦75,000 ($60) per month when he assumed the role in May 2019. He recalled that every morning when they resumed work, over 500 employees were mandated to queue as private security personnel, police officers and soldiers screened them before allowing them into the site. Even when they were thirsty, hungry, and had aching muscles, the queue was maintained.

One morning in July 2019, the queue was so long that many people were already tired of standing in the cold. A concerned soldier then ordered the workers to divide the queue into two.

“I was among the first set of people who left the single line to create another one following the instruction,” Adewoyin said. “But the soldier’s colleagues, who did not hear when he gave the instruction, asked us to sit on the floor and started beating us. I was injured with the butt of their guns on my right eye. I wanted to report to the Chief Security Officer (CSO), but the security agents did not allow me.”

He took his grievance to Twitter (the social media platform now known as X).

The public outrage that followed his post got to his employers at OCCPL and the CSO of the refinery, who later apologised on behalf of the undisciplined soldiers. He visited an eye clinic in the Victoria Island area of Lagos the following day and also took three days off to heal properly.

“The CSO returned half of the money I spent on my treatment.”

Adewoyin’s case was neither the first nor the last.

Read full story here: https://humanglemedia.com/hazards-maltreatment-and-human-rights-violations-at-dangote-refinery/