More than a year after sustaining severe injuries at the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Company as a manual worker, Musa Sodiq continues to go from hospital to hospital fighting for his life.

Sodiq was engaged as a scaffolder by Chemie-Tech Engineering and Construction, one of the contracted companies that worked in building Dangote’s oil plant in the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State.

Like thousands of other skilled and unskilled labourers engaged in the construction of the refinery, Sodiq rented an apartment in a community not far from the refinery.

READ ALSO: INVESTIGATION: Injuries, Tears and Blood… The Death Toll of Dangote Refinery

Musa Sodiq’s work identity card.

On July 16, 2023, a day that was supposed to be his off-work day, Sodiq’s supervisors (identified as Phillips, Daniel and Lastman, an Indian) phoned him that there was urgent work to do in the refinery. Because of the proximity to the refinery, Sodiq joined his supervisor at the site in minutes.

RISE AND FATAL FALL

At the site, the Osun-born scaffolder joined his supervisors and three of his colleagues, who were also scaffolders, to dismember a faulty scaffold.

The scaffold had been mounted inside a large tank a few days prior but had been mishandled by some workers from another company, making it unfit for use. However, the supervisors did not properly explain the situation to the workers.

Usually, the inner side of the tank was dark and it required proper illumination before any work could happen. But on this day, their supervisors failed to lighten up the tank and asked them to climb the scaffold using their phone flashlights to see through the place, little did they know that the scaffold had become fragile at the bottom and could not withstand human weight.

The moment the scaffolders got high up, and before being able to belt themselves, the scaffold collapsed from the bottom and the four of them landed on the ground.

Sodiq sustained an “oblique fracture of the right upper segment of femur” and “avulsion of the lesser trochanter with medical displacement of the fractured segment”, according to a medical report by Pregcare Imaging. In simple terms, he had multiple broken bones on his hand.

One of the men died, another also had a fracture and the last person sustained internal injuries. EQ investigated this incident and the full details can be read here.

A medical report of Sodiq’s injuries.

The injured men were rushed to a hospital where surgeries were performed on them but they were discharged in less than two weeks. According to Sodiq, the company directed the hospital to discharge them prematurely to avoid incurring further medical costs for their stay.

The company then provided walking sticks for Sodiq and his colleague who also had a leg fracture and they were both placed on a monthly stipend of N80,000 for eight months.

MENTALLY ILLNESS CREEPS IN

Sodiq spent months in Ibeju-Lekki living on the monthly stipend and patronising different shops to purchase over-the-counter medicines to treat himself. But this did little to heal him up.

The company advised him early this year to leave Lagos to meet with his family for better care. He had made an inquiry from a hospital and was told to prepare to spend nothing less than N700,000 for another operation. While leaving in March, he requested over N1 million in writing from the company for another surgery when he got home but the company cut it down to N300,000.

Before then, he had begun exhibiting some signs of mental disorder. Frequently, he explained, he could leave home and walk aimlessly around. He was constantly feeling detached from people.

“Sometimes, I could be sleepless and walk aimlessly around. So I decided to change my location. I travelled to Kebbi. After some weeks, I returned to Lagos. The bus from Kebbi ended the trip in Ibadan. I was restless and ended up sleeping in the open at the bus park,” Sodiq explained on Friday.

“I left the park the following day. I remember I just left my luggage, including my crutches, and headed to Lagos. I had got to Lagos before becoming conscious that I left my luggage, which included a bag and crutches, at the park.

“One day, I left my room at night and was having the urge to jump into a soakaway. Thankfully, I regained consciousness and left the soakaway side. In the process, I stepped into muddy water, prompting me to enter a one-storey building beside my apartment to take a plastic bucket to get water to clean my legs.

“The man who owned the bucket saw me and took me for a thief. I was beaten madly with sticks. My pleading that I was not a thief and that I only needed to clean my leg and return the bucket failed. My neighbours came out and struggled to rescue me from his grip.”

He was assisted to walk back to his room and the man also followed him to his room, affording him the opportunity to see Sodiq’s cookware and buckets. It was then that the man became convinced that Sodiq was not stealing his item.

Sodiq’s neighbours noticed that his sickness was already affecting his mental health and spoke with his brother to come and take him.

His life has not taken shape since then, living in increased pain day and night because a metal implant in his leg had broken.

FRESH SURGERY

In March, Sodiq’s mother travelled to Lagos to take him home. At home in Ogbomoso, Oyo State, his family explored non-medical, cheaper alternatives, hoping he would get healed.

But all they did had no impact on his health. As much as they wished to take him to a hospital for treatment, they could not raise the required amount.

They continued looking for funds. Still, Sodiq’s health continued to flounder. Finally, they went to another hospital named Medical Triumphs Medical Centre in Ogbomoso in October after they had gathered some money.

Although some payments have not been made, the hospital has now performed a fresh surgery on Sodiq on compassionate grounds because of the significant pain he was experiencing day in and day out.

Efforts to get in touch with Chemie-Tech to comment on this story were unsuccessful.

READ ALSO: One Died, 3 Had Broken Bones at Dangote Refinery. The Story of Workers Mistreated by Indian Employers

An email sent to Selvakumar Loganathan, a resident construction manager, had not been responded to at press time.

EQ spoke with Anthony Chiejina, the Dangote Group spokesperson, on Thursday on whether the company had a provision for situations like Sodiq’s. Our reporter was explaining the purpose of the call when he asked, “What is my business?”

Chiejina abruptly ended the call and did not respond to a subsequent call at press time.
The post One Year After Fall, Ex-Dangote Refinery Scaffolder Fights to Live appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.