Sumal Food Protest: Oyo Assembly Demands Police Report On Worker’s Death

Reported by Ayooluwa Afolabi

The Oyo State House of Assembly has demanded from the State Commissioner of Police and Head of Operations, Operations Burst, an elaborate report on what led to the death of a casual worker who until his death worked with Sumal Foods Limited.

The directive followed a matter of urgent public importance on the incident brought to the house by a lawmaker representing Ibadan South-West Constituency 1, Hon. Yusuf Adebisi, during a plenary presided over by the speaker, Mr Adebo Ogundoyin.

In his submission, Hon. Adebisi, who expressed displeasure at the level of casualization and maltreatment of Nigerians working in some multinational companies in the country recalled different unfortunate incidents that had claimed innocent lives as a result of poor welfare of casual workers.

He recalled that a 21-year-old University of Ibadan student, Gbadebo Richard, who was on a holiday job at a factory in Ibadan fell into a soap-making machine and died in the process.

Adebisi, also recalled how a similar unfortunate incident occurred at a tobacco company domiciled in Ibadan, the Oyo States capital where a Nigerian casual worker died from exposure to nicotine and tobacco materials, and no action was taken.

He said: “These distressing incidents happened regularly in various industries, particularly those owned by Lebanese nationals.

“My speaker, on Monday, 1 July 2024, a dreadful incident of assault, killing, and manhandling occurred at “Yale 3” branch of Sumal Foods Limited, producer of Yale biscuits and a range of other snacks in Oluyole Industrial Estate in Ibadan South West Local Government Area, two persons reportedly died and several others sustained injuries from live bullets fired by Nigerian Police officers and Operation Burst personnel.”

Contributing during the plenary, some of the lawmakers frowned at the level of casualization of workers in Nigeria calling for the implementation and monitoring of the International Labour Law.

Reacting, the speaker, Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin, said the incident was unfortunate advocating the need to avoid such recurrence.

Meanwhile, the house also adopted the report of the House Committee on Energy, which engaged with officials of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) where the house recommended that the company should make prepaid meters available to customers at subsidized rates to address the issue of excessive estimated billings.