A Job or Hellhole? (Part 2)

Continued from the previous story…

On one occasion that occurred recently, during her EVIC program, which was a very tiring and hurtful process for the people that volunteered, she had an episode with one of her staff members. Bear in mind that according to her, the whole EVIC project was developed to help INEC, but in reality, it was only carried out to enrich herself.

Days before the commencement of the program, she held him at work knowing full well that he lived far away from the workplace until about 8pm. As a result of this, he got attacked on his way home. His phones and personal belongings were stolen, and had to be hospitalized. Instead of this employer to show care and sympathy, she scolded him for not showing up at work after three days, even though she knew what had befallen him on his way back from working for her.

He had to report to work without recovering fully.

This did nothing to satisfy her at all as she kept on shouting at him, saying that he was useless and of no use to her.

Also, she devised a fraudulent means to cheat her employees. She pays some members of staff an agreed amount of salary via bank transfer, but demands for a percentage of that same money to be returned to her by cash. This is just so that there would be no evidence that she collected back some part of the money after payment. In the books, it will reflect that she paid you a particular amount of money, meanwhile reverse is the reality.

When one of her employees reached out to a former staff, she spoke extensively on her own share of this woman’s cruelty. In her words;

“Someone called me saying she had been given a job by this same woman and she wants to know if she should take it, because she has made her research about the woman and she has not gotten a single good review about her. I told her that she cannot work there; it is a toxic space. I just did one month and I left. She is not a good employer, everybody knows that, but because of the culture of silence in our society and the backlash that you might get from future employers, people are afraid to speak up…many people are feeling that if they take up the case or file a lawsuit against her…because she is truly playing with people’s mental health. I remember someone that went for therapy after she worked there, because she actually breaks you…it is not everyone that has that emotional strength, you coming to the office to see how you can actually get your daily bread and pay bills and the employer is making you feel very incompetent, questions your self-esteem and value…so people are afraid that their future employer will say ‘oh, if she can take her former employer to court, then she can take me too o’, hence, they will not want to sabotage their future employment opportunities. There are so many people that have worked for her, more than fifty-and I am not even exaggerating-since the establishment of the organization. We were nine that she employed December. In fact, the people I met when I came…because I didn’t even apply, she approached me, and I came to her office. The people I met at her office in December, when I resumed January, none of them were there, except for two people. She employed new people in January, nine of us. By January 31^st, I resigned when she paid my salary. By February, nine of us left. So you can see how bad it is. If nine people with different personalities could not satisfy one person, then that one person is the problem. But I feel that if one person should file a lawsuit against her and bring it to the open, he/she is going to have many witnesses.”

It is just a shame that we live in a country where some wild animals called employers get to treat their employees with so much callousness and walk away with it. Despite all she does, she feels nothing, because she knows that there will always be young unemployed Nigerians seeking to get a job every day. Replacing people who have quit every month is not a big deal for her.

More importantly, it is the fact that her organization, IRIAD is being sponsored by big organizations like the European Union (that sponsored her EVIC program) and OSIWA. These are organizations that are supposed to empower the society, but yet they continue to sponsor her even though they are aware that she has no proper structure, and does not have the capacity to manage her employees.

Not everyone who has the money and influence should be allowed to run an organization unchecked!