Cross River civil servants protests 4 years unpaid salaries

Cross River State civil servants, on Monday, protested the alleged non-payment of their salaries for four years.

The protest was staged by the infuriated workers at the office of the Head of Service inside the state secretariat complex, Calabar.

They chanted solidarity songs and carried placards with inscriptions such as, ‘Over three years without salary, who did we offend? Yet we go to work every day’, ‘Governor Ayade please pay us our salaries’, and ‘The injustice is too much, a labourer deserves his wage’.

The coordinator of the protesters, Mr David Iyaya, told journalists that they were civil servants from various ministries, departments and agencies employed by the state government in 2018, but had not received a dime since then.

He said they were on a peaceful protest to the office of the HoS and to tell the world that they were suffering.

“We are peaceful citizens, which is why we are demonstrating peacefully. We want the world to know about our suffering. Five years are not five days. Even the HoS is somewhere here, he cannot even come out to address us and I know he has nothing to tell us,” Iyaya stated.

He blamed the Special Adviser to the Cross River State Governor on Payroll Matters, Mr John Odey, for not fighting for the workers and demanded his sacking.

Iyaya stated, “We are here to vent our anger. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed, instead of the government to stick to the MoU, they began calling for recruitment that people should go and submit their credentials at the job placement unit.

“We call on 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 the teaching hospital.”