The hoodlums launched the attack on Wednesday morning leaving several of the protesters running scampering for safety.
Hoodlums on Wednesday attacked aggrieved workers of the Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi, Lagos State, protesting against the non-implementation of their 2021 promotional exercise by the institute's governing board.
According to them, a promotion exercise was conducted in 2020 and it was given approval by all stakeholders from the head of service to university representatives and other sister agencies.
However, a new board was constituted which annulled the promotion exercise, the staff members alleged.
They further called on the Nigerian government to prevail on the board and allow the implementation of the promotion exercise, particularly for 2021.
The workers were also protesting against the return of a demoted officer of the agency, Chima Igwe, to the position of a director.
Igwe, who was the institute’s acting Director-General, was demoted to the position of Chief Research Officer for making false claims to a doctorate from a Benin university.
Based on that phantom PhD, he had enjoyed undeserved promotions for 18 years.
He is being tried at an Ikeja High Court by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission over the matter following orders from the Presidency.
But the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, in March 2021 ordered his return to the position of director in the institute.
A memo, signed by the acting Director, Human Resources Management and Administration, C.A. Ibe, and dated March 21, 2022, was titled, ‘Reverting to Status Quo on the Position of Dr Chima Igwe as Director, Chemical, Fibre and Environmental Technology Department.’
A staff of the agency told SaharaReporters that the hoodlums launched the attack on Wednesday morning leaving several of the protesters running scampering for safety.
“A gate that has never been used before, they came and broke it and entered the institution, a government owned institution. All the problems being faced here in the institution were caused by Igwe.”
When asked who sponsored the hoodlums, he said, “Nobody can do such illegal acts without being sponsored and supported by somebody who is powerful in the system, it’s an individual. This is an institute, someone will just wake up and go and break the gate, for that criminal act, such a person must have been sponsored by the power that be but we can’t say who exactly but a powerful individual.
“The policemen said we should come to the station and we said for what, we were already going but we changed our mind and turned back, why can’t they arrest the hoodlums? So we came back to our place.”