Recruited officers of the Subsidy Reinvestment and
Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) and Federal Task Force (FERMA) have accused the
Lagos State coordinator of the programme of owing them three years salaries
running into millions of naira.
The officers during a protest on Monday at the office of the
National Human Rights Commission, Oshodi, Lagos, southwest Nigeria, equally
protested against the fraudulent extortion of money from them by some
executives of the programme.
The protesters accused their National officers and
chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Lagos as being responsible
for subjecting them to such dehumanising condition and extorting money from
them, adding that the management was using the SURE-P/FERMA job to exploit
desperate job seekers for their selfish political gains.
The protesters carrying placards with offensive inscriptions
on it, sang and chanted solidarity songs alleging that they were mandated to
pay outrageous sums before they were employed for the job, adding that three
years after employment and resumption of duties they are yet to be paid a dime.
They said that at the commencement of the programme in 2013,
applicants were made to pay the sum of N32,500 each for uniform while
additional N5,000 was paid for the procurement of the SURE-P forms.
They alleged further that the forms were picked at the
residence of PDP Chieftain, Chief Bode George, with a promise that they would
be trained in recognised institutions in the country.
They lamented that to date, no form of training had been
organised for them. Instead, they were used for political rallies whenever any
prominent government official was in the state in the build up to the last
general elections.
The angry protesters said the whole recruitment exercise was
a fraud, adding that they were just exploited by some people in the name of
Federal Government project.
They vowed to continue their protest till the Presidency
pays them the arrears of their salaries for three years.
Some of the women among the protesters who spoke with our
correspondent in tears also recounted their tales of woe in the hands of the
coordinators of the programme.
The pains they went through knows no bound in the course of
their respective trainings as they took turns to tell their stories.
Some alleged that they lost their pregnancies while
undergoing rigorous training exercises in the course of the programme while
some said they lost their loved ones including husbands and children. “I lost
my sick husband while doing this stupid work because I hardly had the time to
take proper care of him. I expended all I had on the work because of the
prospect I thought was in it being a federal government thing but at the end of
the day, it was tales of regrets everywhere,” said Nkechi.
According to the coordinator of the protest, Aderibigbe
Kayode Vincent,”we heard from a source within the Presidency that A PDP
chieftain in Lagos (names withheld) told Mr President he paid us N350,000 each.
This is a big lie. We have not been paid a dime for the three years that we
have worked. We have over 70,000 staffs and they are owing all of us. So, I
don’t know where he got that figure from.
“We ought to have had this protest on the eve of the
governorship election but because they knew it will negatively affect the
chances of the PDP at the polls, they called us and begged that we should
shelve it. We went to their office on the Friday before the election as earlier
scheduled and we waited till 7pm and they refused to show up and address us.
“We already wrote all the appropriate authorities on this
ugly development including the police, ICPC, EFCC, our lawyer and others and
they advised that we embark on the protest if not our money will not be paid.”
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