Abuja Investments Company denies plan to sack workers

The Abuja Investments Company Limited (AICL), an investment holding company for the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), has described as an outright falsehood a report that it is planning to sack 80 per cent of its workforce.

The company made the denial in a statement issued on Tuesday by a member of its Interim Management Team/Head Corporate Services, Mrs Omobolanle Olatunde, adding that there was no crisis whatsoever in the company.

AICL, in the statement made available to Tribune Online, said the report, as published in some newspapers, was a campaign of mischief and falsehood sponsored by some faceless people.

“For the avoidance of doubt, there is no crisis rocking AICL and there was never any such plan to sack 80 per cent of the about 60 people workforce as claimed by the faceless sponsors of these wicked and malicious publications.

“Also, the Interim Management Team of AICL has never lobbied or requested the Board to appoint or confirm it as the substantive management team of AICL. “This campaign of calumny is the handiwork of some desperate individuals with a life-long ambition of taking over the leadership of the company in order to avert legal prosecution over their various roles in bringing the company to its knees.

“Such individuals incited some staff to create tension at the time the Board meeting was taking place in order to embarrass the members and the IMT. “They circulated outrightly false and jejune information that 80 per cent of the staff was being considered for retrenchment due to idleness and incompetence.

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“But for the timely intervention of armed policemen, the cajoled staff even attempted to physically attack members of the Board,” the statement read.

Mrs Olatunde added that it had become imperative for the company to set the records straight “because lies told repeatedly and severally can be mistaken for the truth.

“We want the investing public as well as the business community to know that these malicious acts of desperation and attempts by some staff who are under EFCC investigations for corrupt practices and who are also being investigated by the relevant security agencies for inciting staff and intimidating the newly constituted Board are strictly for selfish reasons.

“As the investment holding company for the FCTA, AICL wishes to urge its customers and the general public to disregard spurious claims, fake petitions and unfounded reports by a few paid writers who obviously acting out the scripts of lawless individuals rushed to the press without verifying the facts.”

David Olagunju