Workers in some states across the country yesterday got furious over their unpaid salaries. They protested.
Governors and top civil servants were put under pressure in Ondo, Taraba, Gombe, Bayelsa and Zamfara states as workers got anxious over an imminent Christmas celebration on Sunday.
President Muhammadu Buhari also yesterday admonished governors to pay workers from the N525b debt-service refund which the states have been getting. He declared as unacceptable the situation in which workers are owed salaries for months.
In Ondo State, workers led the Accountant General to the bank to facilitate the payment of one month salary approved by Governor Olusegun Mimiko out of the seven months they are being owed.
Bayelsa workers were angry when they failed to get money from the bank after the government announced the payment of salaries.
Workers shut down the government secretariat in Taraba over unpaid eight months wages. There were protests in Zamfara and Gombe states.
Taraba workers under the auspices of the Joint Public Service Negotiating Council (JPSNC) shut down the secretariat to protest the non- payment of salaries and pension.
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Chairman Peter Gambo, who addressed the protesting workers at the gate of the secretariat, decried what he called the government’s continued insensitivity to their plight.
On Monday, the Government House was shut down by protesting footballers, who were demanding payment of their 21 months salaries.
Gambo listed the issues in dispute as “illegal deductions from salaries, nonpayment of local government workers and teachers for eight months and subjection of workers to meaningless screening and futile verification by the government.”
But Governor Darius Ishaku insisted the state is not owing workers.
“I am not owing anybody,” he told the House of Assembly while presenting the 2017 appropriation bill yesterday.
