Staff of Daily Newswatch newspaper, Newswatch magazine and National Mirror newspaper are set for a showdown with their Publisher and Group Managing Director of Energy Group, Dr. Jimoh Ibrahim, over unpaid salaries.
While the staff of the Newswatch titles are being owed five months salaries, those of National Mirror are in arrears of three months salaries, it was learnt.
However, Sources disclosed that Ibrahim repeatedly tells his staff that he does not need outside intervention to keep up with the payment of the staff.
As a starting point, some of the aggrieved staff of Daily Newswatch have vowed to stop the production of the newspaper with immediate effect.
One of them told disclosed on Monday that if all goes according to plan, the newspaper will not be on the newsstand beginning from Tuesday (today).
Things are said to have gone so bad that the payment of allowances have also stopped.
Yet, the publications are on the newsstand as regularly as they should be.
Ibrahim prints the all-colour Newswatch magazine from London despite failure to pay salaries and allowances.
For the Daily Newswatch, the situation could not have been more pathetic.
Owing to the unpaid salaries, the Sales Manager of Daily Newswatch was said to have died on July 21, 2014 as he could not seek medical help when he took ill.
He was being owed since April when he died.
This was despite the fact that he was Ibrahim’s childhood friend.
Since the newspaper also commenced publication over a year ago, Ibrahim has failed to release the promised official cars to both the Managing Director, Moses Jolayemi, and another top echelon of the outfit, Dr. Bolu Afolayan, who was described as a childhood friend of the GMD.
He is however said to have released official cars to the Managing Directors of his other subsidiaries who joined the Energy Group after Jolayemi and Afolayan.
Many of those who have been able to get their official cars are said to be women.
Sources within the Energy Group revealed that very little seems to be working as staff have become aggrieved over both unpaid salaries and other issues that have made morale low.
One of such was incarceration of a Personal Assistant of the GMD, one Pastor Williams.
Described as Ibrahim’s senior in secondary school, the 59-year-old Williams was held alongside the GMD’s driver over allegations of the disappearance of a bus from the garage of the acclaimed multi-billionaire businessman and lawyer.
While the manager was being held in Lagos, Ibrahim was reported to be attending a course at the prestigious Oxford University in July.
With the leasing of the filling stations in the Energy Group, Global Fleet is said to now have less than 20 staff.
Customers are said to have started staying away from the hotels run by Ibrahim following complaints of neglect.
The NICON Hotels in Abuja and Port Harcourt, Rivers State are said to be shadows of their old selves.
The situation became compounded when Ibrahim’s face-off with the government reached the peak and federal agencies withdrew their patronage.
A source disclosed that owing to the crumbling of some of his businesses and perceived cash crunch, Ibrahim has had to relocate his private jet, a Challenger 605, to Sao Tome.
It was learnt that this was due to his inability to meet up with the payment for parking in Nigeria.
Sao Tome demands for lesser parking fees.
Yet, the troubles brought about by the collapse of Air Nigeria has not ceased.
Ibrahim still has a subsisting $10 million judgment against him in the United States of America for reneging on part of the agreements with the lessors of the aircraft that was used by Air Nigeria.
It was learnt that even the head of the legal unit of Air Nigeria, Akeem Babatunde, has gone to court over unpaid salaries.
The expectation of the staff of the defunct airline was that with the payment of about N3 billion to him by the Assets Management Company of Nigeria and the United Bank for Africa following the sale of the assets of Air Nigeria, he was going to offset the salaries owed the staff.
Ibrahim never did.
Most of the staff, including Babatunde, are still waiting for the settlement of their outstanding salaries.
Source: The Eagle Online
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