Before modern time, when human has little control over nature, and agriculture was the mainstay of every economy, the locust or other pest and drought were the worst cause of famine, in the year of a locust or draught, the very best among farmers will go to farm and return empty handed, though man now have control over pest with the use of pesticide and the drought with the use of irrigation, that one will suppose we don’t need to worry about famine ever again, but the present day government in Ondo state had reinvented a modern year of the locust.
How else can you explain a situation where state workers goes to work and return empty handed at the end of the month, hunger stabbing the kids, life sustain only by borrowing, this is not only wicked it is inhuman.
Ondo state government has put off payment of local government worker for about three months, and it would have been five months now, if not because the January and February salary was paid after lots of agitations. The governor premises this on the presence of ghost workers in the local government staff list.
While the hunt for ghost workers may be legitimate, it is not enough reason to sentence workers to untoward suffering. There are other ways to deal with such situations, while the investigation is ongoing, without punishing the innocent with the offenders.
In an attempt to rid the state of ghost workers, the state government has commenced certificate verification, placing emphasis on the primary school leaving certificate, creating a mass hunt for this certificate, even by men whose file might have been eaten up by termites, and the certificate going as high as six thousand, before it was slashed to two thousand naira.
The Ondo workers has never had it this bad, not even under Adefarati with zero allocations, or Agagu, the last time the locust came to town in Ondo state was in the Military era, who were the supposedly last dictator.
To whom much is given much is expected, Ondo state is greatly endow, it is the only oil producing state in the south west Nigeria, but it performance regarding workers salary is worst when compare to Osun and Ekiti who were considered to be poor.
Governor Mimiko has made some transformation stride, but it is lacking in human development and empowerment. Wonderful as the Abiye save motherhood programme is for instance, the doctors and the health official pay packages are nothing to write home about, things are not different at the ministry of justice too, where the worker’s salary fade to insignificant compare to their Ekiti counterpart, leave bonuses are unpaid as well as retirement benefits.
Nobody can take it away from governor Mimiko that he has performed, but the following had underscore his achievement; youth unemployment, poor workers welfare and capital flight. How do you sustain billions of naira projects which have no bearing to human empowerment and capacity building, the focus of development should be people’s benefit and nothing more.
The big chunk of the blame goes to the labour union of the state, the union seems to be an extension of Gov Mimiko’s administration, that is the only way the local government worker in the state will be denied their salary and they will not act. There is no protest, not even a protest letter, or strike action which is the tradition, if this was the practice of the Labour union in the past, workers will still be working all week long without weekend, no break time, leave and for a longer period than eight hours.
The Ondo state labour union should remember that the man died who remains silence before a tyrant.
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