Police officers attached to Area F, Lagos State Police Command Headquarters, have arrested and detained six old staff and investors of Eatrich Farms, a Nigerian agricultural firm, for physical assault, a charge levelled against them by Bisi Dazuza, the company’s Group Managing Director, for daring to demand their almost one billion naira arrears.

The detainees had protested at the Lagos office of the company from Thursday to Friday afternoon when police officers were invited to arrest them.

“When they came to my office yesterday, they beat me and I even had a seizure in the process,” Dazuza told FIJ, justifying the reason she reported the case to the Police. “One of them threatened to kill me. After vandalising my property, they stole my money and laptop.”

READ ALSO: Ife Oniyide’s Livestock Investment Firm Goatti Defrauds Lady of N650,000

However, one of the 12 investors that protested at the office but escaped police arrest insisted said Dazuza was falsely framing them up because of his influence within the Lagos Police Command.

“We didn’t steal any money from her bag as she claimed,” the investor, who asked not to be named, said. “The damage on the car was very minimal but you can’t totally blame those who did that.”

“Apart from our own investment in the company as staff, some other huge investors we brought in are already threatening to jail us if their funds are not refunded, yet the company’s CEO and the accountant are nowhere to be found.”

Dazuza didn’t deny the fact that these aggrieved people were owed by the company but she absolved herself of any wrongdoing.

“The case they are protesting about is not new,” she noted. “The case is before the Inspector-General of Police but I cannot be threatened for that. I am just two months old as a worker in this company.”

“These people will have to sign an undertaking not to come near me again before they can be released.”

FIJ gathered from reliable sources that many of the workers resigned from the company around June when they realised some of the advertised assets were not genuine. 

By that time, hundreds of customers across Lagos and their branch in Ibadan, Oyo State, had invested over a billion naira in five years.

When contacted, Adekunle Ajisebutu, Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, assured FIJ that he would look into the case and ensure “both parties” were happy in their pursuit of justice.