To Ondo gov: Remi Aye is one death too many

Sir: It is with a heavy and sorrowful heart that we write you this letter that is both an appeal and a Save Our Soul cry on behalf of our members.

This letter is prompted by the death of Mr. Remi Aye, who was a Government House/Governor’s Office photographer with the state-owned The Hope titles. The award-winning cameraman passed on in the early hours of Friday, February 11, 2022 after an illness. We make bold to say that if Aye had been paid his N3 million gratuity early enough, he wouldn’t have died, just yet.

Your Excellency, you will recall that we had written to you sometime in May 2019 appealing to you to help pay our gratuities which amounted to a little over N57 million for about 19 retired staff of The Hope titles. We had pointed out then that staff of Owena Press, which is wholly owned by the state government, are not on the pension scheme and that all they get is their gratuity.

We were happy when you acknowledged the letter and kindly set in motion processes that we thought would lead to the early payment of the money and thus save our members from penury and abject poverty in the twilight of their lives. Alas! The processes have remained in the pipeline since then.

Mr. Governor, the death of Aye, who served the administrations of Chief Adebayo Adefarati, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, as well as in the early years of your administration, brings to eight the number of our members who have died without reaping the fruits of their productive years.

We can also tell our governor that a couple of septuagenarian and octogenarian among our members are battling age-related illnesses without the financial enablement to combat such. And when we think that some of our members are only entitled to what could be called paltry sums with quite a number of us getting much less than a million naira!

Once again, we are passionately appealing to our governor to use his good offices to pay the money from the coffers of government and may, thereafter, choose to deduct it from the monthly subventions to Owena Press. We no longer wish to mourn the death of any of us. Neither do we want to watch helplessly as our members pine away in penury and poverty.

We also call on the Nigeria Labour Congress, the Nigeria Union of Journalists, the Information Commissioner, Head of Service, as well as religious leaders to help us appeal to the state government to save our people from avoidable and painful deaths.

Thank you, sir.

Banji Ayoola, immediate former Editor of The Hope.