•Details of APQ indigenous workers’ tales of woe

Angry indigenous workers of mining giant, African Pits and Quarries Limited (APQ) have locked the road leading to the company’s coal mining site in Awhum Community, Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State. The gate was locked on Thursday, October 9, 2025.

Videos seen by News Express showed the workers, who spoke through their leaders, telling tales of woe.

In one of the videos, Mr. Charles Okpimo, the chairman of Awhum workers for APQ, wore a forlorn look, saying: “I’m very, very annoyed of what is going on in that place. I’m not happy for what they are doing and how they are treating us there.”

Giving details of their ordeal, the workers’ spokesman, Mr. Christian Ifikka, said: “I’m one of the Awhum APQ workers in Awhum community. We are not happy over what we are passing through in the hands of our management, especially our General Manager, Mr Femi.

“We are more than 100 Awhum workers in that site. None of us was employed as a staff. Everybody you can see here is still a casual irrespective of the number of years you have served in that company. We are not happy. They employed us as labourers no matter what you are doing in the company – be you a driver, be you an operator, be you a technician, a welder, a vulcanizer or whatever, you will remain a casual as far as Femi is concerned.

I’m not saying this just to blackmail him or to brand him a bad person. You can verify. Ask him why, ‘have you not given this number of people, your landlords for that matter, why have you not given them appointment letters for serving you for the past four years?’ That is one.

“Two, unnecessary sacking. Once you have any challenge with any Yoruba person, Femi will sack you, he will sack you without any reason, he will sack you without due process. That due process, I mean, is I believe some of our people know what administration is. Once you are going through administration, you will pass through the process of when somebody commits an offence you give that person query. After giving the person query, the person will be given the opportunity to write a reply to your query. That reply is now what the company will be looking at while inviting you to face the panel, while facing the panel is a method of fair hearing. They will give you fair hearing to hear from you even if he was caught red-handed while stealing whatever; they have to give you the fair hearing, to say that ‘I did this’, and according to the code of conduct, it will state there that ‘defend, write to the company within 24 hours why disciplinary action should not be taken against you according to the company’s code of conduct’. Then they will quote that section that says that you steal, that according to the company’s code of conduct, anybody that steals must be sacked.

“Then it is from the reply that you will now tell them that actually I did it or I did not do it. Then when they will now ask you, ‘are you trying to tell the company that you did not perform such a criminal act’. You will say ‘yes’. They will now present the evidence. That means you are sacked. But Femi never for once goes through this process because of the hatred he has over the community.”

APQ, which has subsidiaries in Republic of Benin and Senegal, was yet to react to the workers’ claims as at the time of this report.