CYRIACUS IZUEKWE
Anthony Effiong before the hand was chopped off
A 23-year old man and employee of KMG Chemical Industry, Isolo, Lagos, Anthony Effiong has lost his hand after a molding machine in the company chopped off his hand and was abandoned to his fate by the management who forced him to work there without proper training.
Akwa Ibom State-born Effiong was employed by the company on salary of N850 per week and was later deployed to the machine section without proper training where he eventually had the accident.
According to him, when he went and returned from lunch break, unknown to him, one of the Indian management staff, he simply identified as Mr. Kisho had secretly increased the speed of the molding machine without informing the workers.
He said on resumption after the one-hour break, with the speed increased, he was unable to cope with the velocity of the machine and before other workers could put off the machine, his hand had already chopped off and the other lacerated.
Effiong was taken to Ago Medical Hospital in Okota, Lagos where he treatment and has been abandoned since by the management.
He lamented that even the artificial hand recommended by the doctor has not been provided for as the management has refused to pay for the cost of treatment thus the hospital has not provide him the prosthetic hand.
Effiong said he had been traumatized by the avoidable accident and the way he had been treated by the management.
He said he was only transferred to Agbara branch of the company even without providing him with artificial hand and taken proper care of him.
P.M.EXPRESS gathered that Effiong was not the only victim that has been subjected to such dehumanising treatment by foreign managers of such companies in Nigeria.
Most of those victims were usually abandoned, while others sent to early grave due to negligence.
Speaking on this development, Mr. Sunday Odita, president, Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria, frowned at the government’s lack of interest in protecting victims of this inhumane treatment and conduct of some foreigners who owns companies in Nigeria.
He said government should rein on those companies to prevent them from treating their workers like animals in their own country.