Business
Dangerous: Nigerian govt closes factory over safety, asks workers to go home

Nigeria’s minister of labour and employment for state, Nkiru Onyejiosha, has asked Metal Manufacturing Company located in Sagamu, Ogun state to close over safety concerns.
According to Onyejiosha, the company is putting its workers in danger, Punch reports.
Punch reports that she revealed that the company which makes batteries has been warned many times for lack of protective kits.
Onyejiosha said:
“When I heard about what’s happening here, I told my staff to come and tell them to follow the law. They work with something called lead, which is very harmful.”
“I told them that the company should do some cleaning up and ensure that their workers are properly kitted so that their lives will not be endangered unnecessarily but I later got the report that the company has refused to do anything.
“So I came here from Abuja to see things for myself, and what I have seen here is worse than what was described to me. It is awful and unacceptable. I have never seen the kind of irresponsibility I am seeing at this factory from any manufacturer though, they are telling me that theirs is still better.
“We met the workers without their boots on, packing things with their hands, and no helmet on their heads. Those running this company won’t dare do this in their own country. I have pronounced that the company is prohibited until the management is ready to do things as it is provided for in the laws of our land.”
The Director of Occupational Safety and Health Department, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mrs Lauretta Adogwu, supported by other staff of the ministry thereafter pasted the prohibition notice on the company, and the factory workers were urged to vacate the premises.