Exclusive: INTELS fingered in anti-Itsekiri agenda as it disengages 14 indigenous workers

The Management of Integrated Logistics Services, INTELS, have been fingered in an alleged anti-Itsekiri agenda, following the company’s controversial disengagement of 14 Itsekiris in its payroll, December 2020.

The affected Itsekiris are from INTELS host communities in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State.

Dig-Deep by Fresh Angle International, revealed that indigenes of the company’s host communities; Okere, Ugbori, Ekurede Itsekiri, Ugbuwangue, Orugbo and Ode-Itsekiri, under the aegis of Ugbomefa, first raised the alarm sometime in October 2020, when the 10 staff in the Fire Unit of INTELS, Warri Office, were allegedly asked to vacate their jobs for nine persons brought from INTELS, Port-Harcourt.

Your Soaring International Tabloid understands that out of the 10 persons in the Fire Unit at the company’s Warri Office, three Itsekiris among them who were employed as Fireman and Truck Drivers, were asked to go home and one Tamunoemi Lawson, who was employed same time in 2010 as Fireman with his Itsekiri colleague, wasn’t affected by the disengagement.

It was the resistance of the leadership of Ugbomefa October 2020 that made INTELS re-engage four Itsekiris, two experienced hands and two others. They were engaged under a new contracting firm, Quaishy Classic Nigeria Limited, with no condition of service, hence, casualizing them.  

An Inside Source in the company, who preferred anonymity, alleged that the said Tamunoemi Lawson and other non-Itsekiris in INTELS, enjoyed the protection of the then Regional Manager of Quality, Health, Safety and Environment, QHSE of the company (name withheld) who is an Akwa-Ibom indigene, now in the National Assembly.

According to the Source, it took the leadership of Ugbomefa to battle the Management of INTELS in 2016, when it first declared redundancy, before Itsekiris dropped by the company were recalled.

Fresh Angle International gathered that 14 Itsekiri indigenous staff in strategic positions in Operations and QHSE Departments, were dropped December 2020, under the guise of low business activities, even though Oilserv is allegedly embarking on massive projects at INTELS Yard in Warri and the company is handling logistics job of Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano, AKK Natural Gas Pipeline Project.

There are also allegations that apart from the seeming plot by INTELS through its subsidiary, Associated Maritime Services, AMS Limited to casualize any disengaged Itsekiri worker that may be reabsorbed if the leadership of Ugbomefa successfully intervenes, the company was also accused of denying its host Itsekiri Communities’ indigenes contracts, while people from other tribes are strategically placed as staff, with the handful of Itsekiris left in the company working as clerk and other junior positions.

As at the time of this report, moves were ongoing to present graphic details to the leadership of Ugbomefa, of how the management of INTELS is purportedly marginalizing the Itsekiri host communities, in terms of staffing and perceived infractions of the Local Content Act, vis-à-vis the 60/40 percent MoU, the company allegedly signed with Ugbomefa.

The Community Liaison Officer of INTELS, identified simply as Rexford, was blamed for playing Cat and Mouse Game with representatives of the Itsekiri host Communities, over efforts to address the perceived marginalization.

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