Covid-19: Police Forcefully Extort 5,000 Sacked Chinese Firm Workers Coming From Lagos/Ogun in Adamawa

By Emmanuel Samuel, Yola

No fewer than 5,000 workers, who got sacked by a Chinese company in Lagos and Ogun State as a result of the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, got the greatest shock of their lives when they arrived Yola, Adamawa State capital, as policemen reportedly forcefully extorted them.

The Daily Bells reports that the affected people, who are mainly indigenes of Adamawa state, had to bribe security operatives on the highway with the sum of one thousand naira and above before being allowed into Yola.

Narrating his ordeals on Saturday, One of victims, who pleaded anonymity, at Bali quarantine facility, told our correspondent that no fewer than 5,000 Adamawa indigenes lost their jobs at a Chinese-owned ceramics factory in Ogun state.

According to him, “I can confirm that about 5,000 of us from Adamawa state, are part of a 20,000 staffs of a Chinese ceramics factory, located in Ogun state.

“I can also confirm to you that out of our numbers, a few of us are still on their way back home”.

“We want to plead on their behalf, that our government should do something to fasttrack their arrival because policemen are extorting us on the highways,” he lamented.

According to him, “For instance, some of us have not come back home here for the past five years. As such, many of us don’t have the required valid national identity card; and because of it, police start forcing us to part with at least N1000”, he emphasized.

Reacting to the development, Chairman of the state Covid-19 Containment Committee, who is also the Secretary to the State Government, Bashir Ahmad, who visited the quarantine facility, told the returnees that the state government was aware of their predicament, adding that prompt action will be taken.

The SSG advised them to endure the 14-day mandatory quarantine, assuring them that they would soon be integrated back into the society if they come out clean.

It would be recalled that the state government had earlier sent about 99 persons intercepted from Lagos and Ogun states into isolation in order to be sure that none of them is being infected with the COVID-19.