N400, 000 in a bid to settle the matter amicably, Sunday Sun has
gathered.
The woman at the centre of the alleged torture and who is an indigene
of Delta State, Mrs. Grace Okpara, revealed in an interview with
Sunday Sunthat the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Yazbeck offered her
the said amount during a meeting with the Divisional Police Officer of
the Ibafo Police Station, where the matter was incidented.
Okpara had alleged that during a confrontation at the company, Hala
and her husband, Joseph Yazbeck, beat her thoroughly. She said that
they held her hair and dragged her all the way from an office to a
workshop. She further alleged that the couple boasted that they would
kill her and nothing would happen. On account of the torture meted out
to her by the couple, Okpara ended up in hospital for days.
As Sunday Sun gathered, Hala and her husband both work as management
executives of Buildwell Plant and Equipment Industry Limited, a
logistics company located along the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway.
Following the incident, the police had invited the Yazbecks, but they
failed to honour the invitation until after four days. When they
eventually visited the police station, Hala insisted that it was even
Okpara that actually beat her, and claimed that she never laid a
finger on her.
After much argument, the couple agreed to settle with the aggrieved
worker and offered her the sum of N400,000, which she refused,
choosing instead to have the matter charged to court as soon as the
striking judiciary workers resumed duties.
With pains, Okpara recalled that prior to the torture incident, Hala
had been a thorn in her flesh right from when she began working with
the company four years ago. She said that torturing workers was a
common occurrence in the company.
She blamed the present state of affairs on the high unemployment rate
in the country, which prevents maltreated Nigerians workers from
speaking out against the injustices perpetrated on them mostly by
Lebanese-owned companies.
According to her, Lebanese employers often brag about how they have
bought the Nigerian system, claiming that even if they kill a
Nigerian working in their companies, the government would not do
anything against them.
"So that fateful day," Okpara recalled, "I was coming from one
direction of the workshop when I saw her at the other end. I saw her
in front of our store, she was shouting on somebody. I decided to
avoid her. I turned to enter one office. That is how I do anytime I
see her. Even when I have not seen her, people will call me 'Grace
oh!, your madam is coming.' And I will start hiding. In that kind of
job, there is no freedom.
"I didn't know that she had already seen me. So, she started shouting
at me, saying that she had told me not to go there again. I stopped
and told her that I wanted to take something from the office. When I
tried to enter the office, I didn't know that she ran after me. The
next thing, she grabbed my dress. Then she slapped me and kicked me
with her leg.
"I was like 'Madam, what is all this now.' People were trying to hold
her. She said I should go and collect my pay off, that I had been
sacked. I said 'fine, it is better. Give me the pay off and let me
walk out of this place instead of being treated like a slave.
"Immediately I said that, the husband hit me from the back because he
was standing there too. He queried why I should talk to his wife like
that. I said, 'Ah ah, Mr. Joe, why are you beating me?' When the woman
saw her husband's reaction, she resumed beating me. The man then
pulled my hair and together they dragged me out of the office to the
workshop. I was trying to fight back, but nobody was there to rescue
me. Everybody was there watching; they couldn't do anything because
they didn't want to lose their jobs
"Eventually, one guy came and gave the man an elbow. He was like 'this
one is too much, do you people want to kill her?' When they
