It has been revealed that the President General of the National Association of Plant Operators (NAPO), Harold Benstowe may not be returning to normal life soon as he is likely to be remanded in prison custody when he appears in court today.

A reliable source, who preferred anonymity, disclosed to Kristina Reports that Benstowe will most certainly be charged to court on Thursday, 13 October 2022, for offences ranging from breach of public peace to damage to public property, incitement of workers, operating an illegal organization and trespass on company property.

According to the source, there was an elaborate plan to contain the uprising by the workers of Daewoo Engineering and Construction Nigeria Limited (DECN), which lists as the raid and arrest of some of the workers to instil fear in the rest of their colleagues, temporary closure of the project site to pre-empt any further chaos owing to the arrest of the NAPO president, invitation for a meeting and subsequent arrest of Benstowe.

He said these would be closely followed by remanding him in prison or police custody for a period of not less than three months, reopening of the site and compelling the workers to sign a commitment form to join the company’s recommended union or alternatively to prohibit any form of unionization, and mass sack of key promoters of the industrial action or all the workers.     

“Listen to me, let me roll it out, recall that they arrested some workers and later released them same day, after that they shut down the site, and now they have arrested the workers’ president…”

“This is part of the elaborate plan to stop the problem at the Daewoo site. By tomorrow, they will charge (Harold) Benstowe to court and slam him with charges such as breach of public peace, damaging public property, inciting workers to cause trouble, operating an illegal organization and trespass on company property, among others.”

“The next thing now will be for the court to remand him in prison custody or with the police for nothing less than three months, reopen the Daewoo site and force the workers to sign the form to join the union the company wants or stop any form of union; then they will now sack all those workers at the forefront of the protest so that others will be scared.”     

The source further revealed that some of the workers will be handpicked to represent their colleagues and be induced with some mouth-watering offers, and then new employments to fill the vacant positions that will be created by the mass sack.

“Expect them to employ new people to replace the ones they will sack and then pick some person among them to be liaising with the management on workers issues. These are the things that have been discussed and mapped out. You will see them unfold in the coming days.”

The source informed that this plan was the outcome of several discussions involving some officials of the company, security agencies and labour consultants at different times on how to break the jinx that the industrial action by the Daewoo E&C workers embarked upon that grounded construction activities at the Train 7 project site.

“I’m worried because the workers actually pissed off the authorities by forcing the company to lose so many manhours, damage company properties and cause unrest in the project site; no management worth its salt will take that, even the government has been worried that the project delivery timeline was been hampered. Was that okay?”

Harold Benstowe and five other officials of NAPO were arrested by the DSS on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 and handed over to the Police, who are expected to charge him to court on Thursday, 13 October 2022.