“Don’t Push Us To The Wall” – Aggrieved Workers Omitted From Abia  Salary Arrears Payments Warn

By Suleiman Anyalewechi

A serious industrial crisis is brewing between the Abia State Government and the State Civil and Public servants over alleged discriminatory payments of the ongoing salary arrears.

The Source reports that the Governor Alex Otti-led administration had, on October 2024, commenced the instalmental payments of the over 35 months salary arrears owed workers of some  MDAs and Educational institutions.

The State authorities said they will off-set the about N17.5 billion inherited salary arrears over a period of 12 months, effective last September.

But the commencement of the payments has triggered a novel problem as a large chunk of the supposed beneficiaries ,including sacked workers and retirees, have been curiously omitted.

The development, this magazine authoritative gathered, has been generating anger and frustrations among the staff and individuals concerned, with many of them threatening  to embark on protest marches and strike actions.

Only on Thursday November 14, a massive protest planned by teachers in the state to draw attention to their exclusion from the payments of the salary arrears was aborted by the Abia State Universal  Basic Education Board ASUBEB .

Junior secondary school teachers from across the 17 Local Councils of the State had concluded arrangements to converge on the Federal Medical Centre Umuahia for a mega protest over their exclusion from the ongoing payments of salary arrears.

However, an obviously jittery ASUBEB Management led by Lydia Onuoha, was alleged to have, in concert with Principals of the various Junior Secondary schools, frustrated the protes.

“But they are  wasting their time because if  they continue to exclude us from the payments  we will not just protest, but down tools.

“The fact of the matter is that we, under ASUBEB, are being owed 11 months salary arrears.

Four of the months were incurred when we were still under Secondary Education Management Board, SEMD.

“Now that we have been transferred to ASUBEB, we are being owed seven, and when put together, we are being owed 11 months .

“But surprisingly, when the payments of the arrears commenced in September, our counterparts in the senior secondary schools were paid, but we were omitted.

“After asking us to resubmit our details, and documents which we did, we were still not paid when the second tranche was made in October.

“The worst is that nobody is explaining to us what is happening . Based on that, we decided to stage a protest march on the Government House in Umuahia, but with the agreement to converge on the FMC Umuahia first from all the 17 local Governments.

“We scheduled the protest for Thursday, November 14, 2024. But on Wednesday November 13, we received information that School Inspectors will be coming on Thursday and that any teacher not found on seat will be adjudged to be a ghost worker.

“This was how they frustrated our protest march. But they are wasting their time because if in paying the third tranche of the arrears  we are still omitted we will take a drastic action”, one of the Coordinators of the aggrieved teachers told this magazine.

However, several calls ,sms and WhatsApp messages put across to the Chairperson of ASUBEB Lydia Onuoha ,for a response were rebuffed.

The Source reports that the ASUBEB scenario is playing out at almost all the MDAs and educational institutions involved in the payments of the salary arrears.

At the Abia State Polytechnic, Aba,( Ogbonnaya Onu Polytechnic) hundreds of workers, unjustly sacked between 2019 and 2021 were inexplicably left out of the payment of salary arrears .

As at the time they were sacked in 2019 ( 254 staff) and 2021(98 workers), they were owed 16 months and 23 months salary arrears respectively.

Similarly, those that were retired by the authorities, or voluntarily left the service were also  omitted.

Their strong protestations against the treatment  melted to them have, so far, fallen on deaf ears particularly from the Government side.

While the Management of the Polytechnic has shown enough empathy to the plight of the sacked and retired workers most of whom are presently looking not too different from moving corpses, they are yet to attract the attention of the Government.

Findings by this Magazine revealed that  the same ugly development is playing out at  the College of Education Arochukwu, College of Health Sciences Aba, Abia State University Uturu ,Abia State University Teaching Hospital Aba and Hospitals Management Board Umuahia, with several hundreds of sacked and retired workers  left out of the salary arrears payments.

It has been authoritatively gathered that the affected workers are bracing up for a serious show down with the Government if the omission continues during the third tranche of the payments.

“Well, for now, we want to respect, and at same time. acknowledge the concern so far shown by the Rector of the Polytechnic, Dr Christopher Kalu to our plights.

“He has been supportive, and sympathetic to our pligh, and so far,  has done much to draw attention to our situation.

“But if the authorities continue to neglect us, certainly we will not neglect ourselves. This is because in a situation where empathy rules, we, the sacked workers ,most of whom were retrenched on political grounds, ought to be the  first to be paid  before anybody so that we can pick the pieces of our lives back .

“But that is not the case now. We pray that nobody will be pushed to dance naked on the street”, a sacked Abia Polytechnic Staff and Union Leader volunteered .