Angry teachers, lawyers besiege Gov Ayade’s office for being yanked off payroll

Aggrieved teachers, lawyers and other civil servants in various ministries, departments and agencies on Tuesday besieged the office of Cross Rivers State governor, Ben Ayade.

The aggrieved workers were protesting for being branded ghost workers and their names removed from the state government’ payroll.

With different placards, they marched to the gate of the office of the Accountant-General and then moved to the governor’s office nearby.

No less than 500 science teachers, 40 lawyers, and several ICT workers in various ministries, departments and agencies formed the protesting group.

“Look for Ghost workers elsewhere, not among teachers”, “Stop punishing us”, “Pay us our salaries”, “We need our two months salaries”, were among the inscriptions on the placards the protesters were seen carrying.

One of the protesters, a teacher, Henry Abuh told reporters, “We came here because our names were removed from the payroll. We are about 500 science teachers. Our names were removed from the payroll without our knowledge. We did not commit any crime. We have served this government faithfully.

“Suddenly we didn’t see our alert. We heard rumours that we were going to be sacked two months ago. That was in September. We know that we were not sacked because we have not been issued any sack letter. The problem is that our names have been removed from the payroll. We have not been receiving salaries and our names have been removed from the payroll. And we have been teaching.

“Most of us don’t have the power to go to the class to teach. We pay school fees through this money. Among us here are lawyers and mostly science teachers. What we want the governor to do is reinstate us back. We want the SA Payroll to resign because he did not follow due process. The government is an organised institution. If they want to do anything they should follow due process.

“We went through a painstaking process before we were employed as science teachers and we have our confirmation letters issued to us by the government.  We were surprised to discover that the SA to Ayade on payroll removed our names and since September, we have not received (credit) alerts.

“The state lacked science teachers and that was why both Senator Imoke and Prof. Ayade embarked on the recruitment of science teachers.  We went through a very rigorous exercise and we were even given our confirmation letter. We have been working for two months now without being paid while our colleagues have been paid.  We will not stop protesting until we are paid.”

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Also, on why over 40 of them were among the protesters, Barrister Roseline Inameti said she and her colleagues were protesting because they were affected by the state government action.

Some of them, she explained, had worked as civil servants in the state for more than three years within which period, “we have gone through the process of employment,” she lamented.

However, the Permanent Secretary in the office of State Security Adviser, Sir Alfred Mboto, who later addressed the aggrieved protesters expressed sympathy for them and assured them he would take their complaints to the governor.

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