I was delighted to see President Muhammadu Buhari confess for once sometimes in June this year, that the inability of states to pay workers’ salaries was not only a national disgrace but also a practice that has brought international opprobrium to the country. It is shocking that state governors, who are quick to take home their monthly salaries are quick to deny workers their pay. It is often said that every worker deserves their wages. This maxim might apply to workers in other states. In Kogi state, Yahaya Bello has turned the statement to read “Every worker deserves their wages in heaven”. The message is quite clear: Don’t expect to be paid while on earth if you work in kogi state under Yahaya Bello.
Rather than serve the people who elected him after inheriting Audu’s votes (though he came in through the backdoor), Yahaya Bello expect the people to serve him. Once he and his appointees especially his chief of staff Edward Onoja have taken care of their own welfare and the wellbeing of their immediate relatives, the rest of the citizens can burn to hell because workers are seen as simpletons, who don’t count and do not matter.
In Yahaya Bello’s twisted manner of thinking, there are more important things that should engage his attention. Workers’ salaries, welfare and happiness are not on the priority list.
It is this careless mindset that has been extended to the payment of workers pension. People who worked for many years for their fatherland are denied their well-deserved pension while other officials, the leeches in official government robes, feed off retired workers’ benefits. This is injustice of the worst kind.
Sometimes, you have to wonder whether we are better off as a democracy or as a dictatorship. At least in a dictatorship, everyone knows they have no rights to question state officials. In a democracy, however, citizens’ human rights, which are enshrined in the constitution are violated with impunity by political leaders. Through rampant fraud, corruption, and cheating, public officials and elected politicians aspire to be rich overnight. In most cases, they want to attain their all-time ambition through express but illegal routes. Corruption is evil because those who perpetrate it deprive workers their much valued pay. Kogi State governments’ failure to pay workers’ salaries after collecting the bailout fund is a dishonourable conduct. It is a violation of workers’ fundamental human rights.
Workers do not serve their states and their nation on the erroneous understanding that they would be owed salaries or are they engaged in charitable trust. They deserve their wages. How would someone, who is owed months of salaries feed his family? How would someone who has not received salaries for the past eight months of Bello’s administration be able to pay his bills, such as rents, electricity bills, phone bills, children’s school fees especially now that schools are about returning back from break, the inability of some workers to pay hospital bills has led to so many deaths of workers in the last few months. This is inhuman and intolerable.
If Bello and his appointees could take home their salaries regularly and on time, so too should workers receive their salaries. What is good for bello is also good for ordinary workers, who are struggling to put food on their dining tables. Ironically, some of these workers put in more efforts at work than many of Bello’s appointees do.
The law of the land recognize salary as a right. please Yahaya Bello, change that notion that it is a privileged as whatever we do today, posterity will have a place for us either in the good or the black book tomorrow.
By Comrade Omachi Isaac Achor
