Gov. Ibrahim Geidam of Yobe-state
BY ABDULLAHI ISAH, MAIDUGURI
The over 2,000 sacked workers of the 17 local government areas of Yobe state have threatened to drag the Yobe state government and Governor Ibrahim Geidam to court to seek redress over their unlawful sack if the government refuses to re-instate them.
Speaking on behalf of the sacked workers at a press conference in Maiduguri, Alhaji Mohammed Kukuwa said “I decided to intervene because the workers were unlawfully sacked without query or wrong doing or even termination of appointment letters, only to go to the bank for their salaries to hear that they have been sacked.
“I, therefore, call on Governor Geidam to consider re-instating them or we have no other alternative than to take the Yobe state government to court, because there are procedures for employing and terminating government workers”, he stated.
“In this era of Boko Haram insurgency, how can someone sack over 2000 workers in the local government system? I think the Boko Haram crisis will be fuelled by unemployment and poverty. So we don’t want anything that will further compound our problem,” Kukuwa stated.
He said “the government deliberately sacked the workers in order to reduce the wage bill in the state due to the fall in revenue from the federation account, instead of reducing cost of governance as it relates to government officials.”
Also speaking, one of the sacked workers from Tarmuwa local government said one of his colleagues slumped at the ATM queue when he went to cash his salary only to find out that there was no money in the account and people told him he had also been sacked.
He called on the government to consider reversing its position, as many people were dying of hunger and frustration as a result of the prevailing economic hardship and the Boko Haram insurgency.
He also lamented that their children have been sent away from schools because they could not pay their school fees stressing that they can no longer even pay their medical bills in this time of economic hardship, insisting that Gov. Geidam must change his mind and recall them.
