Editor-in-chief of The Nation Adeniyi Adesina has said that the newspaper cannot recall journalists who were sacked recently.
“The issue here is that we find ourselves in a systemic situation that some people were laid off. It is uncontrollable,” he said on Wednesday when a chairmanship candidate of Lagos State Council, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Adeleye Ajayi and his campaign team visited the paper’s office in Lagos.
Mr Ajayi, a deputy editor-in-chief at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), had urged the paper’s management to recall all journalists sacked by the organisation.
“When we put them on leave first, they were being paid 20 per cent of their salary for the three months,” Mr Adesina continued.
“At the end of the day, we tried to bring back few people, but we could not. They had to go.”
According to him, the company’s rule says if anyone leaves the company voluntarily or involuntarily, the company has within three months to pay them their entitlements.
“In this case, the company had even decided to, within the first month, pay their entitlements, but there are some whose issues we have to settle.
“Some of our people affected took soft loans, some took loans from the Cooperatives Society, some placed advertisement they have not paid for, and some took loans from the Sterling Bank.
“So, they need to sort out these so that they can be paid,’’ he said.
Adesina said the affected staff who have no pending issues would be paid before the end of September.
The Nation laid off tens of reporters as part of the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
