Group Berates Chevron Over Denial Of Employment

Mulls Request For Company MD’s Transfer Out Of Nigeria

Tayo Olanipekun

The Niger Delta Indigenous Movement For Radical  Change (NDIMRC) wants the Managing  Director of  Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) Mr. Jeff Ewing, to investigate what it observed was a denial of employment to one Captain John Roland Tonlagha  after a “successful interview” with the company.

The group said it would resist any attempt by the American oil giant to deny the Niger Delta indigene of employment and also called for the Managing  Director of Chevron Nigeria Limited, Mr. Jeff Ewing, to be investigated by the company’s Headquarters in the US.

The result of the medical test the Captain underwent was said to have shown traces of drugs  in his urine sample but was not allowed to know the drugs detected.

Captain Tonlagha was on September 17, 2018, invited for an interview for the position of Mooring Master, in which he was believed to have been successful and necessitating his proceeding to the first medical examination on the 8th and 11th October, 2018, at Chevron Clinic, Lagos, according to the group in a statement.

NDIMRC’s President, Nelly  Emma; Secretary, John Sailor and Public Relations Officer, Stanley Mukoro, jointly signed the statement,  saying: “Our checks revealed that a second test was conducted at Chevron Clinic Warri, on the 27th of November 2018, and there was also discovery of drug interactions in his urine. The same result produced in Lagos Laboratory was duplicated in Warri Laboratory. This was insulting and a total embarrassment as he neither drinks alcohol nor smokes.

“He took to an independent investigation which was conducted in both Nigeria and the United   States of America. Specifically, the tests were carried out at Lily Clinic, Capitol Hill  Clinic, all in Nigeria,   US Coast Guard Test Centre  and also at US Drug and Alcohol Test Centre. All in the  United States of America. He was given a clean bill of health as all results were negative.”

NDIMRC, therefore, views the case of  Captain  Tonlagha as a “deliberate attempt to deny him of employment by Chevron Nigeria Limited.”

“Many of our qualified  people have been going through this terrible experience in the hands of the Multinational oil companies,” the group lamented, calling for  a probe into the matter and investigation into the activities of the Nigerian hospitals it said are conniving with Chevron to deny Niger Deltans employment.

According to the group, it will not hesitate to ask that Ewing should be transferred out of Nigeria as “he does not mean well for the people of the Niger Delta Region,” and that the trend if not checked will lead to a time when Niger Delta indigenes “will not be found working in the multinational oil companies in the region.”