Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
The rich get richer while the poor get poorer typifies the secret life of Nigerian billionaire, Aliko Dangote, as one of his ponzi scheme has just crashed, Secret Reporters has exclusively gathered.
It was massively advertised as Dangote Truck Entrepreneurial Scheme in virtually all the media outlets both in the conventional and new media. It was designed in such a way that qualified graduates will be empowered to manage trucks assigned to them and eventually become owners after the trucks must have attained a defined mileage. So many young graduates excitedly keyed into the initiative with accolades being showered on the drafters of the scheme. It was described as a panacea to youth unemployment and was hailed by all from all quarters. Dangote was cruising as the king of unemployed graduates that the Federal and State Government could not employ.
After the buzz and eulogies from the government and the public had died down, the goal post was shifted by Dangote Group. The recruited graduates were told that it’s no longer and entrepreneurial scheme. They were cajoled to believe that they have been offered provisional offer of employment in one of the most ‘respected brand’ in the country, Dangote Cement Transport.
With confirmation promised after 6months, they were made to leave their lucrative jobs to join a household brand. They were given employment letter but it looked so vague and empty. It was bereft of the usual details that accompany any offer of employment letter. Out of mixed feelings, some graduates accepted the offer and some rejected it. Most accepted it because they saw it as an avenue to work in a brand that has house hold name with great potentials. They were termed as Truck Officers with the mandate of overseeing trucks assigned to them and superintending over the truck drivers.
Sadly, their hopes and dream in identifying with this brand has been dashed and short lived. The events that have played out thus far in 8 months seemed like a calculated and well orchestrated deceit with a timeline. The drafters of the scheme played it out methodologically with a defined template. Meanwhile, a reliable source revealed that Dangote went to collect loan from World Bank to fund the Obajana Cement factory and one of the conditions given to him was to employ Nigerian graduates, which he agreed to.
For the past 8months that Truck Officers have worked at Dangote Cement Transport, Dangote paid only N57,5000 as monthly salary, instead of the N150,000 they were promised during the recruitment section.
According to one of the affected staff, who left a Bank Job just to be with Dangote, “This is the height of corporate fraud and enslavement. No medical benefit paid, no overtime allowance paid, no special duty allowance paid, no leave grant paid, no defined bonus paid, no form of welfare package paid, no confirmation letter as promised. Truck Officers were left at the mercy of just a misery 58,000 naira stipend paid monthly. Yet, we looked beyond the monthly take home to discharge their duties to the best of our abilities without any inhibitions”
A truck loads about 45 tonnes of cement worth over 2million Naira per trip and a Truck Officer is expected to monitor the loading, dispatch and delivery of the consignment to its final destination and it’s return to base with the assistance of the Truck Driver. In spite of this round the chain effort, no Truck Officer has made close to half of that amount from the company for the tireless efforts put in daily both weekends and public holiday to maintain the trucks for this past 8 months. This is regardless of the hazardous and unpleasant working condition Truck Officers are daily exposed to with nearly non existing working tools.
Within the 8months period under review, Truck Officers were responsible for the resuscitation of over 100 moribund and non operational trucks which are up and running today. So many Dangote trucks involved in accidents or broken down on the high way and littered across different parts of the country thereby causing nuisance on the road were brought back to Obajana through the major efforts of Truck Officers. This feats were mainly achieved under very strenuous conditions and risk with no special incentive paid.
In a swift, they were relieved of their appointments after passing the 6 months probation period, which qualifies them for automatic confirmation.
Lamenting his dismissal, one of our sources stated that “this is indeed a capitalist world with heartless and conscienceless management at the helms of affairs. The management style has been so porous with no clear cut policy direction. Truck Officers are daily bequeathed with flip flop policies. Yet, they improvised and applied ingenuity in getting the job done. More so, the threat of dismissal and query even with verbal insults from management at times became a recurring trend in the course of the work”
Calls placed to Chijiena Anthony, who’s the Corporate Affairs Manager of Dangote never went through.
It is no longer news that Dangote is getting richer as a results of his wicked treatments giving to his staff. He sacks at a twinkle of an eye without reasons
Dangote is a scam er. We worked tirelessly to improve operations and meeting customers order. We were told in the offer letter that bonuses and incentives would be paid. Dangote refused to pay. Even Christmas bonus and 13th month no truck officers received kobo. I regret accepting to work for this criminal. God will judge you Dangote.
This has been the trend in Dangote cement transport. Prior to this, they have been terminating staff batch by batch and nothing is being done. Just 4 months ago they terminated about 44 Fleet Managers for no concrete reasons. As sad as this one is, it was inevitable.
Scam of highest order, Dangote did same thing during Graduate driver scheme. Dangote are using young talented youths to make his money without taking adequate care of them, to me this is modern slavery. Dangote must stop this.
This is absolutely evil. A friend of mine in Ibese told me of this development. What a shame. It is time the NLC and TUC investigated this bizarre and do something.
The orchestrated plan of ALH Dangote in deceiving thousands of Nigeria youth to take job with the organisation under a vague conditions can best be described as the ablution of pussycats a strategy to steal meat,its quite disgusting and painful for all of us to realised despite all the efforts that we have put into this job despite the hostile environment we are to function both in Ibese and obajana that 800 graduates could be forcefully butted out in one swoop without taking into consideration the negative impact such traumatic experience will have on the staff and their loved ones, I was narrating this harrowing experience to my sister yesterday and advised me not to let my mum know about this so that we don’t have another crisis to dealt with, it is this devastating, no word can adequately express or describe the emotional trauma that we have been thrown into since Saturday evening when a team of armed mobile police were brought to humiliate us by forceful snapped our idcard from us and made us to receive termination letter. The world at large need to know what evil is melted on Nigerian youth/ graduates in Dangote cement here in ibese and obajana and help to put in check this injustice by the richest man in Africa, this is quite unfortunate.
Its shameful that a big business group lyk dis has failed to appreciate the potential available in a nigerian graduate. It is unheard of that an employer tosses his employees to the street overnight with no prior notice or entitlment of any kind. The way and manner dis industrial fruad was highly perpetuated is unimaginable being dat he ensured these graduate would go home broke and devastated. Imagine a man that brought his family all d way from kaduna to ogun state, opened business for his wife, put his children in school wat does he expect him to do afta changing his life for dis job. The company neva paid relocation allowances, bonus, and nt even provision for accomodation in our early months. In fact they prefer to employ pple from 11th of every month knowing fully well payroll closes on the 10th so therfore u wont b payed for ur half month and u will work an additional 30days if u dont fight for d half month salary d so called executive will keep mute. Well if i keep write it will nt b enough to discribe hw his wealth has been made at the detriment of young vibrant Nigerian youth. WHAT A CAPITAL SHAME