Ogun Former Councillors Beg Abiodun Over Unpaid Salaries, Furniture Allowances, Severance packages
According
to them, the demands include the two-month salaries owed them after they were
sacked from office by the governor, unpaid furniture allowance and their statutory
severance seven years after leaving office.
The
former councilors had on Thursday staged a protest at the Governor’s Office,
Oke Mosan, Abeokuta, where were armed with placards bearing various messages
such as “No more promises, enough of deception, we want payment now”, “We are
tired of being neglected, Gov Dapo Abiodun, please help pay our severance”,
“Seven years of suffering is enough, pay us now,” among others.
Representatives of the Former Councillors, Hon Monsuru Lateef
and Hon Wasiu Biobaku while speaking on radio programme “Oselu Ote Yii” on Operatune
Fm 106.3 Abeokuta, they lamented the untold hardship and the financial crisis
they have to endure as a result of the non-payment of their statutory
entitlement after serving the government for three years.
For instance,
the former councillors said over 50 of their colleagues whom they served during
the same period had died as a result of a lack of financial support to attend
to their medical needs.
They explained that their protest followed the decision of Governor
Abiodun to pay the financial benefits of the former councilors who served at
the local governments after their tenure between 2021 and 2024.
According to them, they decided to beg the government to also consider helping with the payment of their long-overdue severance allowance.
“We served with all diligence and dedication, but we are sad that seven years
after leaving government, we have yet to get our severance allowance paid.
“While we were in office, the government owed us two months’
salaries that are yet to be paid, as well as the statutory furniture allowance
likewise.
“The matter
got worse with the non-payment of these statutory severance package which has
really exposed a lot of us to avoidable financial crises that have claimed the
lives of many of us.
“We are about 349, but over 50 of us have died while several
others are currently ill because they do not have the finances to cater for
their medical needs, the ugly development which made some of them to succumb to
the cold hands of death.
“We
are not fighting the Governor being our father and political leaders in the
state because all of us are members of the ruling All Progressives Congress
(APC), therefore we plead with our father, the governor, to please pay our
entitlements alongside the already approved one.
“We are all APC members, and we are serving the party with
dedication. We just plead with the government to show us mercy”.
“We are not sponsored by any politician, we are rather here
begging the governor to please help us with the payment, we cannot continue to
suffer, we beg the governor to please help us out”.
Several
callers who made their contributions during the programme joined the former
councillors to plead with the Governor to accede to their long overdue demands.
It will
be recalled that former Governor Ibikunle Amosun had in 2016 created the 37
LCDAs to compliment the existing 20 Local Governments in the state but Abiodun did
not recognize the LCDAs since he assumed office in 2019 instead the governor
had since conducted council polls into the 20 council areas.