By Ebun Sessou & Onyeka Emordi

About 30 Dock Workers have staged a protest to the Lagos State House of Assembly over what they described as untold hardship meted to them on account of the failure of the management of ENL Consortium Limited to fulfill its obligation to all disengaged Dockworkers who were previously under its supervision in “Shed 6/Terminal D and C”.

The protesters who carried placards some of which read: “Dockworkers demand democratic Union to defend workers’ interest”; “Reverse Port Privatisation, Nationalise it under workers management”; “ENL must pay our 10 years terminal benefits now”; “Privatisation has worsened port problem, Capitalism is evil, socialism is better”, lamented that the dehumanization by the management of ENL Consortiun was condemnable.

Spokesman of the protesters, Mr. Eseagu Gerard, explained that, the management of ENL Consortium Limited has failed to pay its disengaged workers for the past ten years.

According to him, about 650 workers have been subjected to untold dehumanization and slavery condition of work and denied their due and agreed entitlements and payments.

In a protest letter jointly signed by Gerard as coordinator and Adams Aminu as Secretary, they asked for, “payment of the balance of workers percentage and that of the management to our Pension Fund Administrator, PFN, to allow the PFA to commence the process for effecting their obligations to the disengaged Dockworkers.

“And also the payment of the unremitted contributory pension from 2006-2011 to our designated PFAs. “The payment of our annual leave allowance covering all of the ten years.

“Revisit and review of the payment of N350,000 Redundancy Terminal and Hazardous benefit, to determine the criteria for determining the figure that originally should be less than N850,000”.

Addressing the protesters, the Speaker of the Assembly, Mr. Mudashiru Obasa promised to take the matter up and ensure that it is investigated.

He advised them to be peaceful and not to take laws into their hands, while protesting.