Mary Agbo
A female National Youth Service Corps member has taken the fight to
her employer for allegedly assaulting her and plagiarising her work.
Mary Agbo, 28 has waited for over a month for the first signs of
justice for an wrong she says no woman should ever have to face –
violence against women in the workplace.
On August 1, 2012, Agbo began her NYSC primary duty with the Garki
Gazette, an Abuja-based weekly lifestyle and events publication, located
within the premises of Eddy-Vic Hotels on Ahmadu Bello Way, Garki II,
Abuja. By August 17, Emmanuel Abanah, the magazine’s publisher and owner
of Eddy-Vic Hotels confirmed her as the Editor of the publication
“having satisfied preliminary conditions for the job”, he wrote in her
letter of engagement.
But on November 1, she filed a complaint at the Garki Police station
against Abanah, 35, for allegedly assaulting her after she requested a
Performance Certificate, the necessary documentation corps members must
obtain from their employers monthly, and mandatorily submit to the NYSC
to be entitled to their government allowance. She reported the assault
to the NYSC on the same day and asked to be reposted from Garki Gazette
citing fear for her life and an unsafe work conditions.
“He slapped me and pushed me, I hit my ear hard on an iron fence by
his garden. He started dragging my top (white NYSC vest) and my breast
came out,” Agbo told the Police. “He brought out his hand again and
slapped me. He called his manager and assistant to send me out of the
premises which they did”.
Agbo explained the events of November 1. In the morning while
attending her Community Development group meeting, she was advised to
submit her PC the same day as NYSC officials would be busy with the new
batch of corps members resuming the following week. Back at the office
which was locked, both Ada, Abanah’s assistant, and Sharks, the
magazine’s production manager advised she call the publisher. After
several unanswered calls and an SMS, Abanah alighted from his hotel room
rude and shouting at her for disturbing him. As she tried explaining
herself, he began beating her in anger, Agbo said.
A medical report from the Asokoro General Hospital signed by Dr. C.N
Okoli stated Agbo “presented with generalized body pain, headache,
earache, dizziness, and tinge of blood in the right eye”.
The Garki Police went to Abanah’s office that same day, but met his
absence. It however became clear he had gone into hiding after he failed
to turn up following several other visits to his office and calls
inviting him to the station. A warrant for his arrest was subsequently
obtained.
Two reasons are at the root of the assault, Agbo says. She had
severally asked Abanah to pay her salary and that of the magazine’s
contributing journalists being owed months in arrears. This displeased
him tremendously. Also, her refusal to concede to her employer’s sexual
advances irked him further, she said.
The NYSC at a zonal level launched an investigation. A source within
the NYSC who asked not to be named provided the internal report with
the findings from the investigation. Though Abanah had refused to see
the investigating officer, staff of Garki Gazette and Eddy-Vic Hotels
confided “he [Abanah] has been treating them the same that he pays them
salary whenever he feels like and they do not have the right to ask
him”.
“Based on the information about this man, shows that he is a very
irresponsible man,” The NYSC investigating officer reported. “I advise
that the corper should be withdrawn from serving in this establishment
and be reposted, and all possible measures should be taken to make him
for his reactions. He has no right to treat her this way.”
Abanah on his own then petitioned the NYSC State Coordinator on
November 12 accusing Agbo in a four-page letter of “poor parental
upbringing” and being “desperate, devious, and dubious and a calculated
and cold liar that thinks everybody wants to flirt with her”. He added
he has no regards for the Garki Police station and was therefore taking
his case against Agbo to the Commissioner of Police of the Federal
Capital Territory.
“The publisher did not want a heehaw affair with a desperate woman
whom he has been feeding in a local police station,” Abanah said.
“Miss Agbo has been given a fair option of proceeding to a court of
law with her claims, but will not be granted the excessiveness of a
shouting match with her employer at a local police station.”
Abanah in a calculated move petitioned the Commissioner of Police of
the Federal Capital Territory. But contrary to what he told the NYSC,
he claimed Agbo was using police officers from the Garki Police station
to threaten him. He asked the case be transferred to the FCT Police
command, apparently to avoid being charged to court. On November 30,
Agbo was invited as an accused to make her report. She was detained and
only released after her sister stood bail for her.
By December 3, when the FCT Police Command was presented with
Abanah’s subsisting arrest warrant from the Garki Police station, and it
was also discovered the contradicting motives Abanah had declared in
his letters to the Police, and the NYSC for refusing to honour the
Police invitation, he was arrested with the Garki Police Station taking
him into their custody.
Speaking to Abanah while in detention behind the Police counter, he
said a recent case of murder in his hotel involving an alleged
prostitute in October and his unwillingness to continually bribe
officers of the Garki Police station led him to refuse to honour their
respective invitations. Abanah denied assaulting Agbo, but claimed she
was out to tarnish his image. He described Agbo as erratic and
unproductive who for three weeks failed to come to work for no apparent
reason only to resurface asking him to sign her NYSC Performance
Certificate.
Abanah’s staff when questioned separately however debunked his
claims, instead stating Abanah had failed to provide a conducive work
space for them. A visit to Garki Gazette premises revealed the only
furnished office is Abanah’s office, which doubles as his office as
Eddy-Vic Hotels managing director, located on the ground floor of the
hotel facing the main entrance. Another space for staff remains under
construction.
To further puncture his claims, Agbo, the former sub-editor of the
Charly Boy magazine, provided evidence of the eight editions she oversaw
as editor of the Garki Gazette, with her by-line and image featured on
the editorial page.
Agbo also accuses Abanah of plagiarism. Despite not giving her a
termination letter, he removed her by-line from the magazine’s 54th
issue which was her ninth edition which she said she wrote 16 out of 32
pages and edited before its publication 3rd-9th November 2012. A copy of
the said publication reveals Abanah replaced Agbo’s name as editor with
Kaila Budango, his pen name. He removed Agbo’s image from the editorial
page, but published her remarks “word for word”, passing it off as his
own, she said.
Late in the evening of December 3, the Police in Garki ushered a
visibly humbled Abanah into a police cell after asking him to undress
and declare all his belongings on him. He spent the night and was
charged to court on December 4th 2012 for resisting Police arrest.
Abanah’s friends, since his arrest, have been pleading with Agbo and
her family to let peace reign and withdraw her case currently with the
FCT Police Command. Agbo said she has to consult with her lawyer and
rights groups which took up her case before taking a decision. She
however underscored conditions Abanah must meet.
“One he has to write back to NYSC to retract the lies he wrote about
me. Two, he has to write an undertaking nothing will happen to me
because he knows where I live,” Agbo said. “And since my contract is not
terminated, he must pay my arrears and that of other staff he owes
their salary.”
Two samples of the editor's page of Garki Gazette where Ms. Agbo claimed she was short-changed
Talk
about instant judgment. A middle-aged man suspected to be a car
snatcher was in the early hours of Saturday shot dead at Kubwa by the
vehicle owner, who happens to be a police officer.
