Posted by Amarachi on Tue 05th Nov, 2019 - tori.ng
The firm called on the publishers of the said articles to retract them and apologise to the company or face legal battle for defaming its name.
An ICT Firm based in the United States, Emplug Limited has dismissed the publications in the media by some national dailies (not Vanguard) that it used its recruitment Portal to swindle the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA the sum of N100 million in the ongoing nationwide recruitment exercise of NDLEA.
Briefing newsmen in Abuja on Friday, the Chief Executive Officer of Emplug Limited, Engr. Azunna Chukwu described as misleading and defamatory, the assertions published by the two national dailies name withheld against Emplug Limited in their edition of Saturday, 12th October and 11th October, 2019, respectively.
He said the unsubstantiated claims and allegations in the said publications designed to mislead the general public were false, libellous and malicious and challenged the publishers to prove their claims.
Contrary to the claims in the publications that the ongoing recruitment is being handled by the CEO of NDLEA, Abdallah and his admin staff, one Mshelia through Emplug allegedly belonging to them to swindle the agency, he said the company was not only registered in the United States but was also duly registered in Nigeria by the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC in 2015.
Engr. Chukwu, who made available copies of the CAC registration and that of US in the City of California explained that Emplug actually won the highly competitive bid before the NDLEA Tenders Board considered the award of this contract to the company for the Sum of N45 million as against N100 million claimed in the publications and wondered how the publishers of the controversial articles carried out their investigation.
He called on the publishers of the said articles to retract them and apologise to the company or face legal battle for defaming its name.
‘‘Our attention has been drawn to the misleading defamatory assertions published on 12 and 19th October, 2019. The unsubstantiated claims and allegations, designed to mislead the general public are completely false, libellous and malicious.’’
‘‘Given our clean reputation, Emplug will like to clear the aid on these accusations. It is disheartening and embarrassing to journalism in Nigeria to know that a registered Newspaper in Nigeria with years of experience could not make a simply search with the CAC to confirm facts before publishing such falsehood.’’
‘‘Contrary to the publications that over 100,000 applicants applied online for this recruitment and that only 5,000 were shortlisted that not apply online for the job vacancies is a proof that the publications were false these figures were quite modest compared to close to the nearly 400,000 Nigerians that applied for the NDLEA jobs recorded by our platform.
‘‘This is an intentional and calculated attempt to smear the image of Emplug. As a result, we have initiated legal actions against the two publications for this act of irresponsible journalism. As a registered organization in Nigeria, Emplug is a responsible corporate citizen and our operations are guided by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and International best practices. WE remain committed to creating sustainable solutions to millions of Nigerians and building a working nation despite this unfortunate attempt to tarnish our image.’’
In addition, the Emplug CEO said the company is currently building Free Career Clinics across the country for everybody and professional seeking for job placement.
With two operational offices in Lagos and Abuja he said over 7,000 Nigerians have benefited from their Free career Clinics.
He also expressed their readiness to partner with any willing state government, organization or individual to establish more Free Career Clinics in any location in the country to engage unemployed youths.