They are not our workers, says HoS
Civil servants in Cross River State, yesterday, protested the non-payment of their four years and six months salaries.

The protesters stormed the office of the Head of Service (HoS) at the state Secretariat in Calabar, chanting solidarity songs and displaying placards with different inscriptions such as “Over four years without salaries, who did we offend? Yet we go to work everyday,” “The injustice too much,” “labourer deserves his wages,” “Governor Ayade please pay us our salary.”

Speaking on behalf of the protesters, the coordinator, David Iyaya, said they were aggrieved civil servants from various ministries, departments and agencies employed by the state government in 2018 but had not received a dime since their employment.

He said with the protest, they would draw the attention of the world to their plight.

“We are peaceful citizens and that is why we are demonstrating peacefully. We want the world to know our suffering. Four years is not four days. Even the HoS is somewhere here, he cannot even come out to address us and I know he has nothing to tell us,” he said.

While demanding for the sack of the Special Adviser to Governor Ben Ayade on Payroll Matters, John Odey, Iyaya blamed him for not fighting for the good of workers.

He said: “We are here to vent our anger. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed, instead of government sticking the MOU, they are calling for recruitment, that people should go and submit their credentials at the job placement unit.

“We call for John Odey to be sacked, he is the SA on payroll, we expected him to mediate between us and the government as a former labour person, but the reverse is the case, we are so disappointed in him. We have lost four of our members. One just died last week at a teaching hospital.”

But reacting to the protest on the telephone, the HoS, Ogbang Akwaji, said the protesters were not workers as they claimed.

“Those are not my workers but they say they have appointment letters even though I have not sighted it. You should first of all have sighted it.”

“There is nothing new about those calibre of persons. They are flaunting appointment letters but his Excellency the governor clearly stated that he did not give authorisation. So if you have appointment letter into the service and the governor said he did not authorize, then what you are holding amounts to nothing,” he said

He however said the governor addressed the matter at the stadium as labour mentioned their matter. He said government would engage them at the appropriate time.