By Achiever Peterson
A former staff of LEADERSHIP NEWSPAPERS, Durojaiye Hassan, on Saturday said he had concluded plans to drag the publisher of the Newspaper, Sam Nda- Isaiah, to the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), over N4.8 million salary arrears.
Aside
owing Hassan the sum of N4.8 million salary arrears, Nda-Isaiah had also
refused to pay him the commission from the 400 pages advertisement he
single-handedly secured for the Newspaper from the Kogi State government.
Lawyer
to Hassan, Omileye Olamide Ayoola, stated this during a press briefing with
Judiciary Correspondents in Abuja.
Nda-Isaiah,
2015 Presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress
(APC), is a Pharmacist who turned publisher by accident, after failing in the
pharmacy business.
He
became a serial debtor after he lost the 2015 APC primaries and aside his
non-payment of salaries, he is also notorious for subjecting staff to all forms
of Police harassment, intimidation and detention.
For
more than a week now, a full page advert of 'Disclaimer' has been running in
LEADERSHIP Newspaper against Hassan.
Hassan's
lawyer, Ayoola, therefore urged innocent i members of the public who may not
have known the genesis of the crisis to disregard the disclaimer advert in the
LEADERSHIP Newspapers.
He
said, "Nda-Isaiah is known for cheating his staff when it comes to the
issue of their welfare. He decided to start running disclaimer adverts against
me simply because I refused to be cheated.
"From
reliable source, my lawyers told me that Nda-Isaiah had called the
Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, who is his kinsman, on phone, to
intimidate and harass me despite being cheated."
According
to him, all the adverts placed by Kogi State Government amounted to about N100 million out of
which he only paid a month salary for all his staff.
Ayoola
explained that Hassan who was employed by the Newspaper in 2011 until he
resigned voluntarily in July 2017 had three years outstanding arrears of his
salary to the tune N4.8 million unpaid.
The
lawyer, however, said his client fell apart with LEADERSHIP Newspaper when
Hassan, through the good relationship he had established in the past secured a
400 pages advertisement from Kogi State government to the tune of N45.5
million.
"The
payment for this advert was done through Hassan's personal account. The monies
were paid into his account in his individual capacity and not as a staff of
LEADERSHIP Newspapers but more or less as an agent through which they could
have paid the assignment through other Newspapers since he became a free agent
after his resignation from the Newspaper in July, 2017.
"In
the course of this payment, some monies
were lodged to my client account which he appropriately remitted to LEADERSHIP
Newspaper and took less N3 million as commission which was an agreement between
him and management of LEADERSHIP Newspaper. This N3 million was a token out of
the contract worth N45.5 million.
"The
explanation for this is that he paid N39.5 million into LEADERSHIP Newspapers,
took N3 million as agreed between him and the management of LEADERSHIP
Newspapers and another N1 million which was supposed to be given to the Kogi
State Government House staff to facilitate the payment as agreed and approved
by the management of LEADERSHIP Newspapers as well.
"My
client also took N2 million, part of his salary arrears; this was also done
with the agreement of the management of LEADERSHIP Newspapers."
Hassan's
lawyer expressed shocked that instead of honouring the agreement with his
client, Nda -Isaiah resorted to intimidation and harassment of his client with
the police.
"My
client was harassed, arrested, intimidated and detained by the police for no
crime committed under our laws. As a law-abiding citizen, he has always made
himself available at every given time as requested by the police force" he
added.
Meanwhile,
Hassan has expressed surprise over a full page disclaimer LEADERSHIP Newspaper
carried in his namE, which, according to him, has projected his client's image
in bad light.
He
said his client has received several calls both locally and internationally
asking him what he had done to have necessitated such disclaimer.
Ayoola
said, "On the disclaimer, we have
today sent a letter to LEADERSHIP Newspapers making various demands prominent
among which is his salary arrears, the illegal deduction made on his salary for
all the years he had worked with the paper.
"His
one year salary, which was taken from him over advertisement he knew nothing
about should be paid. We have all the evidence and facts to prove all this.
These are facts that will be clear for the court to see when the time comes.
"The
issue of staff unfair treatment in Nigeria has become so common. This battle
should not be treated lightly because if this should happen to Durojaiye today,
it can happen to anybody."
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