The staff of Yenagoa Local Government Council have protested the non-payment of their salaries for the past four months.
The government workers staged the protest at the council area in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital in Nigeria’s oil region.
The staff expressed their grievance by barricading the entrance into the council, they all sat outside the gate singing solidarity songs, carrying placards with various inscriptions demanding for the immediate payment of their salaries.
They also demanded for an audit of the financial records of the council.
The Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees, Yenagoa Branch, Comrade Waku Oyoro, explained that all political appointees in the council have been paid while the civil servants were being owed.
The Branch Chairman of the Medical and Health Workers Union in the council, Mr Oyaba Bomson, and members of his union are also asking for the payment of their four-month salaries, which spans the month of October 2015 to January 2016.
While a staff of the council, Mrs Christiana Mbu, explained the hardship she and her family are experiencing, an elderly woman, Madam Macvier Dickson, who said she is sick, also appealed for her money so she can go to the hospital.
Efforts to reach the Chairman of the council, Honourable Chubby Ben Walson, and other principal staff of the council by Channels Television crew were futile as they were not within the council premise and their mobile phones were switched off.
