I am constrained and surprised at the way the Kogi state chapter of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has decided to keep mute at the permanent 35 or 40% salary payments to teachers and pensioners in the local government segment in the state.
For more than four years now, these set of people are marginalized compared to what is paid to state workers who are fully paid since the inception of this administration.
If for nothing, I think the labour leaders should fear God and have little sympathy for these set of workers and pensioners who have to pay school fees, rent, feed and buy drugs.
For how long will these people be buried on account of curable sickness and hunger?
They are demoralised and hypertensive going to the same market with state and federal workers in the same locality.
I praise Kwara NLC when they request #30000 minimum wage for all workers in Kwara along with pensioners in Ilorin. They have gone on strike based on these agitations. Pensioners are happy because the Union is alive to their quests and needs.
Back home, I wonder the wisdom behind NLC request for #30000 now when the #18000 minimum wage is long abandoned. I wonder why the union is playing on the intelligence of a common worker and pensioner when they are praying for the implementation of 18000 and not yet answered and the union is talking about 30000!
I am sad to see pensioners taking home #1000 or less.
I am pleading to NLC to wake up and not leave the situation at hands to NUT and NULGE to handle. They cannot do it for reasons I don’t know. The father Union should as a matter of urgency fight for the normalization of local pensioners and leave #30000 alone for now.
They are weeping openly, nobody cares. They can no longer pay bills, nobody cares. They can no longer feed, no neighbour cares. They can no longer embark on project, no body cares. This carelessness of our society should not extend to the NLC.
I am pleading, save our souls!
– Comrade Elesho Joseph, a retired teacher, writes from Isanlu, Kogi State.
