THISDAY: Obaigbena apologises, promises to pay within 30 days

Sequel to the two-part story by The Eagle Online about the misfortune of staff of Leaders and Company Limited, publishers of the THISDAY titles, who are being owed four months salary, the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the company, Nduka Obaigbena, has promised to remedy the situation.
Obaigbena, in a memo to the staff on Thursday evening, promised to pay the outstanding salary within 30 days.
In the memo in which he addressed the staff as colleagues, Obaigbena explained that the company has been going through hard times after the bombing of the company’s Abuja office by suspected Boko Haram members.
He said with the engagement of printers from outside the company after the destruction of its Abuja office multi-dollar printing machine, a lot was being spent on running cost.
He said the offsetting of the salary arrears has begun with the Abuja office and would be completed within 30 days.
Obaigbena, however, did not respond to the issue of bounced cheques given to teachers who won the awards at the 18th THISDAY Awards.
The cheques were presented to the winners by a former President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton.
Here is the full letter Obaigbena wrote to the staff on Thursday:
Dear Colleagues,
Following several enquiries, I write to notify you that we are working very hard to pay delayed salaries.
The process has already started in Abuja and should end within the next 30 days when ALL arrears of salaries and entitlements would have been settled and we resume payments when due.
As you are well aware, as a company, we had long put the issue of delayed salaries behind us and staff were being paid on time when we had the misfortune of a terrorist attack on our Abuja offices in April last year during which our buildings, million-Dollar printing and computer-to-plate equipments were gutted. And we sadly lost two lives – one of whom was our security official. Our insurance did not cover the losses as we were not insured for War Risk – no one planned for a terror attack in Nigeria and so we were left to fend for ourselves. Despite that, we continued to meet our commitments as due. But when the cost of outsourcing printing to third parties caught up with us, things began to slow. After paying over N600 million in unplanned costs to outside printers, we began to feel the pain from October last year when many of you began to experience some delays in salary payments. We could have cut costs by reducing staff, but given the circumstances we chose keep all staff until things got better. For many it is so easy to forget we had a terror attack and are losing monies everyday because of it. What we have decided to do is to sell non-core assets to pay off all debt and buy new printing and production equipments for Abuja. That process is on.
I just thought in view of the current negativity, I should communicate directly with you all, to assure you that all will be well.
I thank you for your understanding and continuing loyalty to the company.
We Shall Overcome.
With continuing regards,
Nduka.