Workers allegedly sacked in Lagos-based Chinese company for refusing to practice Buddhism
Bow or lose your job, that’s the unwritten rule according to the staff of a Chinese company based in the Abule Osun area of Ojo, Lagos. The firm which is identified as Yiwu Baolian Import and Export Company Limited is said to coerce its employees into practicing Buddhism by its CEO, Fanni Lijuan.
The staff made this known after two of their coleagues were allegedly fired for their refusal to bow three times to the Buddhist instructor. They said the process of converting them to Buddhism became obvious when they started receiving strange instructions from their boss.
Lijuan is being accused of making her religion paramount in the company and anyone who refuses to comply with the practice is sacked. Colleagues of the two affected staff believe that they were fired for this reason other than the guise that they lost their jobs because they didn’t meet the criteria for the recent restructuring of the company.
Some of the employees say that others may have compromised in order to keep their jobs as their boss had threatened to sack anyone who opposed the practice of Buddhism in the company. A former staff of the firm said he found it unsettling to engage in reverence to any other god beside his God.
“This is bad. We can’t be in our country and be treated like that. In Nigeria, nobody can force you to worship their gods. It is only in Nigeria that a foreigner will come to do something like that. The reason you still have some people in that company is because there are no jobs outside there. We are suffering,” one sacked employee lamented.
When confronted with these allegations, Lijuan denied forcing anybody to practice her religion. She accused the employees of being arrogant, disrespectful and admitted to asking them to bow as a sign of humility.
