Your policies are sentencing Nigerians to death – Federal workers tell Tinubu

Federal workers on the platform of the Federal Workers Forum (FWF) have appealed to the federal government under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu to pay outstanding salaries and other entitlements for the workers.

The union made this appeal during its online meeting held on Monday.

The workers in a communiqué signed by their National Coordinator, Comrade Andrew Emelieze, said that the federal government is still owing the poorly paid workers who are already struggling for survival.

The workers maintained that the federal government is owing years of promotion arrears, backlog of duty tour allowances (DTA), eight months of 25/35% increments, five months of wage awards, arrears of the new national minimum wage, earned allowances of federal tertiary institutions (FTI), hazard/uniform allowances of military and paramilitary officers, and many more arrears owed to federal workers and pensioners.

Emelieze, in the communiqué, appealed to Tinubu to urgently fashion out radical moves to immediately tackle the rising cost of foodstuffs and other goods and services.

He said, “Mr President, Sir, the situation at hand is really very bad, worrisome, and disturbing. Nigerians are dying of hunger. The tough and hard policies you are making have brought untold hardship to the Nigerian people. Our people are now stranded everywhere; almost everybody is now a beggar.

“The Nigerian daily existence is now a struggle for survival. It is as if our people have been ambushed since the removal of the subsidy on petrol. It has been tales of lamentations everywhere, and things have really fallen apart. It is so bad that many more citizens are contemplating suicide, just as the suicide rate is more than ever before. These hard and tough decisions have proven to be very harsh, hostile, and rash.

“Sir, your policies/reforms are sentencing Nigerians to death; your policies are tantamount to capital punishment. Our society is now stagnant, our naira is badly devalued, and prices of goods and services have gone out of the reach of the masses. The price of petrol has been increased more than fourteen times since you came to power. Our people are paying a very heavy price for your policies.

“On our part as federal government workers, the story is not different; federal workers are also feeling the pains as a result of your tough policies. Federal workers are dying in silence. The price of petrol has gone up from ₦187 to ₦1300, and nothing reasonable is being done to assist the workers to combat the debilitating effects of your hard reforms. The ₦35,000 wage award/palliatives given to federal workers was stopped abruptly only after six months of undulating payments in the month of February; five months of wage awards are still owed to federal workers. The new national minimum wage paid last September shows that only ₦40,000 is added to the salaries of all federal workers across all levels.

“Sir, it is most unfortunate that despite the harsh economy, the federal government is still owing the poorly paid workers who are already struggling for survival. The government is owing years of promotion arrears, backlog of duty tour allowances (DTA), eight months of 25/35% increments, five months of wage awards, arrears of the new national minimum wage, earned allowances of federal tertiary institutions (FTI), hazard/uniform allowances of military and paramilitary officers, and many more arrears owed to federal workers and pensioners.

“Mr President, Sir, we are calling for your immediate attention; federal government workers are starving, and almost everyone is on loan to survive the day.

Our take-home hardly survives us for a week. We, therefore, urge you to personally intervene in the plight of the federal workers. We urge you to reevaluate the so-called new national minimum wage of ₦70,000; this to us is ridiculous and should be a national embarrassment and a disgrace. Federal government workers have been financially embarrassed. We, therefore, reject ₦40,000 added to our monthly take-home as the new national minimum wage.”