13 months unpaid salaries and allowances: Imo workers rise up against Okorocha. Shutdown Owerri with massive protest

13 months unpaid salaries and allowances: Imo workers rise up against Okorocha. Shutdown Owerri with massive protest

Sick of the inability of the state government to pay salaries and allowances for up to 13 months in some cases, angry civil servants in Imo state took to the street in a protest that virtually shut down the state capital Owerri on Tuesday.

Most of the workers, who wore black attires, a symbol of grief, wept and sang while directing curses at the administration of Governor Rochas Okorocha.

“What have we done to Okorocha to deserve his punishment?’ ‘Governor Nebuchadenazar, pay us our salaries,’ ‘Our children are suffering,’ ‘Rochas, the Idi Amin of our time,’ and ‘We have never had it this bad,” where inscribe on the placards some of them were carrying.

According to the workers, Okorocha mismanagement of the state resources is responsible for his inability to pay workers.

13 months unpaid salaries and allowances: Imo workers rise up
against Okorocha. Shutdown Owerri with massive protest

“The judiciary staff are now owed for nine months and the end of their travails appears not yet in sight. We are really in for hard times in this state and the governor is not worried about our plight,” one of the workers said.

According to the Vanguard newspaper, workers of the state’s Water Board have not been paid for 12 months; Library Board, eight months; Due Process, nine months; Imo Marketing Board, 10 months; Imo Specialist Hospital, 13 months; Hospital Management Board, nine months, and Imo ADP, 10 months.

The State Chairman of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Mr. Austin Chilakpu, said that the workers were left with no choice than to embark of the protest following the repeated failure of the government to honour agreements reached with workers in the past.

“The leadership of the NLC had, on November 13, promised workers that the state government would pay their salaries on November 17, based on the agreement it entered into with labour but failed.

“This failure on the part of government made the workers to doubt the inability of the organised labour to fight for their rights,” Chilakpu said.