Thousands of Imo workers on Wednesday took to the streets of Owerri, the state capital, to protest the non-payment of salaries and the proposed sacking of 4000 civil servants.

Commercial activities were paralysed in Owerri as the protesters, who carried placards, marched from Edede Street through Mbaise Road and ended the protest on Port Harcourt Road.

National officers of the Nigeria Labour Congress and pressure groups from neighbouring states took part in the protest.


 
Addressing the protesters, the National President of the NLC, Aliyu Wabba, assured workers in the state of the general support of the NLC and workers across the federation.

He said, “In Imo today, workers and pensioners are owed between 15-18 months while workers in the parastatals have been sacked by the state government.”

The NLC President also said Imo was the only state where legal officers in the ministries were being owed eight months’ salaries. According to him, retired teachers have not been paid their gratuities after long years of service.

He added, “Workers cannot be sacked by a mere pronouncement on the pages of newspapers when they were employed through due process.”

Wabba further said that they were in the state to engage Governor Rochas Okorocha in an open discussion, adding that the NLC would resist any plan by the government to retrench workers or reduce salaries of workers in the state.

He said the orientation and policies of the APC at the centre were at variance with those of Okorocha.

The NLC boss said while President Muhammadu Buhari was preaching job creation, Okorocha was planning to sack workers.

He wondered why Imo State had failed to pay salaries despite collecting a bail-out from the Federal Government.

Wabba condemned the government’s policy on the privatisation of health care facilities, adding that such an act would amount to denying people a right to affordable health care.

He blamed the current shortage of funds to the high level of looting by those in the corridors of power while calling on anti-graft agencies to extend their investigations to both the local and state government levels to ensure an effective anti-corruption war.