FOR two consecutive days looters besieged the premises of Zeenab Foods Limited, Abuja stealing food items, weighbridge equipment, scales, office chairs, tables, air conditioners, electric motors, armoured cables and tools worth millions of naira.
The General Manager of the food processing and production company, Mr. Chrles Idubor, stated that the looting took place on Monday and Tuesday.
He said: “It’s been the most horrific and devastating experience the company has had since its inception.
“After many warehouses had been looted on Monday at Idu Industrial Layout, the company received a distress call at about 11:30 pm that over 200 hoodlums had gained access to the factory.
“They scaled the fence and forced their way into the warehouses and carted away food products, especially rice and beans.
“We, therefore, called on the police who later came to drive away the hoodlums after much resistance that night. Some were arrested in the process.
“The next day, our chairman was there, along with the General Manager and other senior management staff to assess the damage done by these hoodlums.
“At around 9:45 am, more hoodlums, male and female, numbering over 300, gathered to our dismay at the factory gate and around the fence trying to gain entrance for further looting and vandalism.
“Efforts by our management to calm them down and make them understand that the factory had already been looted and for them to show mercy, proved abortive.
“When the situation could no longer be curtailed by the joint task force men, the hoodlums broke into the factory again.
“This time, some of them even bore holes through the fences.
“It was such a disheartening situation; we wondered what the country had turned into, where private companies can no longer operate in safety.
“We hereby call on the government to look into our plight.
“These unprecedented crises and protests have affected us so badly.”
