Nigerian billionaire and Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Holdings Limited, Adedeji Adeleke has denied ordering one Faith Ezekiel to be locked up in an abandoned building in Ede, Osun State.
Adeleke is the father of the famous singer David Adeleke, better known as Davido.
Faith, an ex-worker of Omotosho Electric Energy Company Limited, Ore, Ondo State, a company owned by Adeleke, had alleged that she was illegally sacked by the Managing Director of the facility, Tokunbo Omidina and HR Manager, Bamiji Olapade.
She added that she was deceived to come to Ede, Osun State by Omidina and Olapade and locked up in an abandoned building with no electricity, water or functioning toilet for seven days.
“So the next day, the HR Manager (Bamiji Olapade) sent N25,000 into my bank account, called and told me to start going to Ogun state. I didn’t tell my friend who accommodated me; I carried my handbag like somebody who had been charmed and left for Ogun state. I received a call from the Acting Managing Director when I arrived in Ogun state that evening; he told me that their plan had changed and that I should start going to Osun state.
“So I boarded a bus to Osun state that I hadn’t been to before. He called me again when I got to Osun state and told me to wait at a filling station. Around 9:30 pm, two men came and carried me to a place they said is called Ede; they said they were taking me to Adeleke University. We got to a big gate and a man I don’t know came and took me in his car to the outskirts of the compound, close to the bush. He kept me inside an abandoned building with no functioning toilet, electricity, water; a very dirty place,” she said.
“I cried, screamed and told him to release me, that I had an ulcer, he told me that I would be there till the Acting Managing Director and HR Manager instructed him to release me. I didn’t eat or drink,” she had claimed.
Efforts made by SaharaReporters to reach the billionaire businessman for a reaction or clarification were not successful as he did not answer calls to his mobile phone. He also did not reply to a text message sent to him on Friday.
But reacting in a statement sent to SaharaReporters during the weekend, Adeleke said Faith was sacked by the management of the company after she was found to be guilty of professional misconduct.
He added that he recommended the 30-year-old woman for the job after sponsoring her secondary and university education.
He said she was sponsored to have her tertiary education at a private school, Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State and that he had no reason to abduct her.
“Let God judge between me and her. I have only seen this girl about two or three times ever; once at Seventh-day Adventist Church, Magodo, and at Babcock University, when I attended Governing Council meetings. Maybe I did her wrong by sending her to Babcock for University Education and giving her employment.
“The Seventh-day Adventist Church Pastor in Magodo brought her to me one day after service in Lagos and asked me to help her that she is an orphan. I told the Pastor to enroll her at Babcock School. From there to Babcock University. At Babcock University, she was suspended for one year, wasted the school fees I paid for a whole year, which was about N900,000 at the time, banned from Babcock University dormitory for bad behavior, stayed with three different Pastors in the university before she finally graduated. After a lot of pleadings with school authorities to allow her complete her programme, she broke the school rules fighting other students.
“At Omotosho Power Plant, she started fighting her colleagues and her bosses, stayed in her apartment and refused to go to the office and yet was collecting salary for many months. The MD of the Plant felt that something was seriously wrong with her mental health, which exposes the $750m Power Plant and other workers to high risk. He recommended that she should be fired and asked to leave the plant, which I approved as Chairman.
“Some church elders asked me to post her to our Power Plant in Ogun State for a change of environment, instead of sacking her, which I refused after consulting our HR department and personally going through her file. I know nothing about her going to Ede, and the other stories she told, I asked the MD, and he denied the story.
“I’m a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I believe and pray to God Almighty in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. My help comes only from God Almighty who made the heaven and the earth, not from any human being, I am not fetish and I don’t believe in going all over the place looking for help from a fellow man or woman, that only God Almighty can give. It has worked for me all my life and I have peace.”
However, speaking again with SaharaReporters, Faith said Adeleke should stop justifying what the company’s Managing Director did to her because he sponsored her education.
“Yes, it was Adeleke that sponsored me from secondary school to university, my mum knew him. My mum came from his mother’s side. You know his mum was from Abia State and we attended the same church. I met him in 2001 because we were attending the same church till my mum died.
“So after my mum’s death, he heard through my aunty and told them not to worry, that he would sponsor me. So he sent me to Babcock University Secondary School and Babcock University, it’s a full scholarship. Reason I’m angrier is that it’s not as if this man doesn’t know me. He sponsored my secondary and tertiary education, full scholarship throughout.
“So when I finished Babcock in 2012 and was waiting to go abroad to start my master’s, I deferred my NYSC. So when Dr Adeleke heard I was staying at home and not doing anything, he said I shouldn’t be lazy and not waste my time at home, that I should go and resume at Omotosho Power Plant. I didn’t even apply for the job, he was the one who told me to go and resume with the company.
“So when I went back to Babcock that I wanted to serve, I was posted to Ondo by NYSC and attached to the company with the help of the former MD. He was the one who wrote to the NYSC state coordinator to post me to the company.”
On why she rejected her sacking by the company, Faith said, “I wasn’t given any query and warning before the sack letter and refused to acknowledge it because it didn’t come from the head office.
“The MD and HR are the problems of the company. They were the ones who told me Dr Adeleke ordered them to abduct me, I didn’t hear him say that directly because he wasn’t even answering my calls nor replying to my messages again. He doesn’t even come to the company at all, I didn’t see him in the company for the six years I worked there.
“The only problem is that Dr. Adeleke has refused to say anything about this case. He kept quiet while the MD and HR illegally sacked me because he feels I’m nobody. What if I had died in that building they kept me without food and water.
“I later found out that the duo told Dr. Adedeji Adeleke that I wanted to burn down his Power Station. They thought I was exposing their secrets to Dr Adeleke because of the relationship I have with him.
“Some people said the MD and HR used charm to make him believe the lies they told him about me. If Adeleke had at least replied to all my messages and ordered these people to release my properties, Omidina and the HR wouldn’t have done this evil to me.
“I’m not a bad person at all, If I was a bad person, Dr. Adeleke would not have given a job to someone I recommended to join us in the company. I once pleaded with him to employ someone and he agreed to employ him, so I’m not a bad person or a blackmailer.
“The MD and HR are using Dr. Adeleke’s name to commit different atrocities. The fact that he sent me to school and gave me a job doesn’t mean I shouldn’t ask for my rights. Was I even the only one he sponsored? He should stop justifying his mistakes with the fact that he sponsored my education and all that. The truth will be revealed, I trust God for that. Dr. Adeleke should order the MD to release my credentials.”
Meanwhile, the management of Omotosho Electric Energy Company Limited has exonerated Adeleke from all the allegations levelled against him by the 30-year-old former employee.
According to a statement sent to newsmen, by the company, the billionaire businessman is not in any way involved in “our day-to-day administration as there is a capable management in place, whose unfettered authority to enforce compliance with company policies, including the enforcement of discipline, is sacrosanct.”
It added that Faith was not abducted as claimed and was sacked for flouting company rules and regulations to the point that her continuing retention could no longer be condoned.
The company said she was also paid three months’ salaries upfront after being disengaged despite being a junior worker.
The statement read, “Up front, we wish to make it abundantly clear that our chairman, Dr. Adeleke, is not in any way involved in our day-to-day administration as there is capable management in place, whose unfettered authority to enforce compliance with company policies, including the enforcement of discipline, is sacrosanct.
“As reported in the said publications, the issues in dispute are before a court of competent jurisdiction. We are, therefore, constrained to elaborate beyond letting the public know that the said Faith Ezekiel has severally flouted company rules and regulations to the point that her continuing retention in our workforce could no longer be condoned as this will result in complete breakdown of law and order within our multi-billion naira power plant.
“This said, it is to be noted that the said 30-year-old orphan, Faith Ezekiel, was referred to our company for employment after completing her university education and the mandatory one-year national youth service by Dr. Adeleke. We are aware that our chairman never knew Faith Ezekiel from Adams. As a church elder and the philanthropist that he is, he took up the challenge of bailing an orphan out of the streets through his scholarship scheme when the pastor of his Seventh Day Adventist Church drew his attention to the plight of this orphan.
“His full scholarship took her through Babcock Secondary School and Babcock University, where at different times she had disciplinary issues with the school authorities leading to her expulsion from the hostel. She ended up living with three different pastors before graduating on account of disciplinary issues. All these are verifiable facts and anyone, so interested, should contact the authorities of the aforementioned institutions.
“We would like to reiterate our pride in our workforce – our greatest assets. As management, it is our core responsibility to ensure that our assets are protected and comprehensively insured against all known perils.”
A staff member of the company added, “I worked with her and everything she wrote here are pure lies, if you really want to know more about this girl. Go to Babcock and ask about her, and then you will know that she is the sister to the devil itself. She is a tormentor, delusional and a blackmailer. She can rewrite someone’s destiny with the way she explains things.
“They did her no wrong but she did the company a lot more than wrong and no one wants to work with her because they kept taking her from one department to the other because no one wants to work with her. I fear who no fear Faith (I fear who doesn’t fear Faith). It’s stated in our employment letter that the company can terminate our employment and they did with three months’ salaries. She wants attention and she is getting it.”
