*I will try to be as brief as possible. If you don't believe any of the things I say you can contact Uche Ajele, Onyeka Akumah, Wale Adetula, Evans Akanno and some other notable ex jumia staff, and if they are willing to speak on/off the record. Thanks for listening.
I just read different posts on different blogs about the iROKO staff’s experience, and I felt I had to just speak up and forget. Honestly, this isn’t an iROKO disease alone, other Nigerian tech startups(especially those with german ties) are following this route. I used to work in a top position for Jumia Nigeria, a retailer whose parent company, Rocket Internet’s hiring and firing speed followed it to Nigeria and Africa.
If you have ever heard about Oliver Samwer’s famous blitzkrieg, trust me, the things that happened in Jumia Nigeria were worse. Labour laws in Nigeria need to be revisited or well publicized. Do Nigerian workers even have rights? In Jumia, you are smiling one day, the next day you are fired. First in 2012, 50 members of staff were fired, then more were hired, then more fired again, the total number of staff fired in this period was over 100. One of the most annoying things were having to take pictures and smile when members of the press came visiting! Lies! All lies!
Jumia is not a Nigerian company, and for all I care they don’t care about Nigerians! Don’t be deceived by the Cameroonian and Nigerian figurehead “Harvard CEOs”, they have puppet masters pulling their strings. Jumia Nigeria has been sold! Their balance sheets are worse than you can imagine! And in a few months to years they will become subsidiaries of a bigger company and the CEOS are just waiting to cash out on their cheque, and present staff are just pawns to be used till the time comes. Jumia Nigeria’s strategy was to lure staff from their companies with big salary promises, and after a very short time, leave you with the lower end of the straw, they never leave you even after they “fire” you, but continue to follow you to your new place of work trying to ensure you never get another chance at working. The company leaves out its investors code – hire, fire, move and dispose with rocket speed. They sack staff and hire like the wind.
I worked with over 60 different faces in the period I was there. Working for Jumia was like hell; we would resume at 8am and leave at 9pm for normal staff and much latter for management staff, understandable for a startup but not when the bait is threats of firing and legal actions. The line managers were tools to perpetuate the acts, and the coup de grace would be when the line manager gets fired after he had fired the other staff, I saw this happen in marketing and human resources while I was there. And if you are wondering, I was sacked and plan to take legal action soon for continued harassment and for wrongful termination. Why was I sacked? Was it for going home early at 9pm or not sacking my entire team? Well I hope a court of law will get it out of them.
Blogs and newspapers should stop being deceived by Jumia's berlin pr team, only those who have worked within the system fully understand the system. I believe all ex jumia staff need to speak up to help end this madness.
God bless you.
J. U
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