It has been reported that no less than 200 aggrieved staff of a private guard company called PAMA Global Security in Zamfara state mobbed their Managing Director, Alhaji Hassan Shattima over non payment of their salaries for seven months.
According to a Daily Trust report, the incident took place within the premises of the federal medical facility in Gusau in broad daylight. It took the intervention of the men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps to save the MD of the security company from being lynched by the angry staff.
It was gathered the company was owing his staff posted to the Federal Medical Center seven months salaries. But, when they learnt that their boss was planning to pay them only two month salaries after he collected payment for four months from his client, that is the FMC, the staff became angry and went on rampage.
Witnesses told Daily Trust that the aggrieved private guards pounced on the Managing director of the company when they saw him and started hitting him with sticks and other dangerous objects and some of them were trying to strip him naked publicly.
The spokesman of the NSCDC in the state Mr Aminu Ismail Maru said the managing director of the company had earlier made request for men to escort him to the premises of the hospital where the payment was to be made to ensure security.
"As they reached there our men then found a different atmosphere and some of the staff were attacked too and they had to fire shot into the air to clear the crowd. Some of the angry staff were trying to disarm our men and you know we will never allow that to happen," he added.
He said even the 2IC operations of the command was struck down trying to save the managing director from being lynched by the mob adding that it was when thier men sensed the danger of allowing the aggrieved staff to overpower them that they took the decision to protect themselves.
"Even if their boss is at fault they should not take laws in to their hands. Civil defence has a statutory duty to regulate the activities of private guard companies and even sanction the erring ones among them," he said.
Mr Maru further explained that all stakeholders would be invited and the matter would be investigated thoroughly and that 2018 annual PGC summit would hold on Friday in Gusau to discuss issues. He then dismissed the allegations from some quarters that the civil defence had backed a side.