A security guard was shocked after returning from a holiday to visit his mother in Nigeria to find he had been banned from work because his employers feared he had Ebola. Sam Ayodele Ogunnoiki, 46, from St Austell, Cornwall came back from a three week holiday there on Saturday to find a letter from his boss saying several members of staff had raised concerns about working with him following his trip. That came despite Nigeria being officially declared free of the deadly virus.
Mr Ogunnoiki, who has worked for Stout Security LTD for eight years, was told by director Trevor Mannell that he had to allay colleagues’ fears that he was carrying the Ebola virus back with him and could not allow him to return to work until he had been back in the UK for at least three weeks. Read the letter addressed to Mr Ogunnoiki below
‘In order to allay any fears that you are a carrier for this deadly virus, I feel I cannot allow you to return to work until you have been back in the United Kingdom for three weeks – which is the incubation period.
Nigeria does not have Ebola but he said I have to be cleared. There is this stigma surrounding me now. It’s just ignorance and a nightmare because I cannot work. I’m a British citizen.My wife does the same job as me and I saw her at the weekend and she has been allowed to work, but if she has been in contact with me she would have Ebola too. There is no justification for this at all.
Mr Ogunnoiki added that it was unlikely Stout Security LTD would rehire him to work again at Pendennis Dockyard in Falmouth. He said he has now been put on a zero hours contract.
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