Operations at the Etsako West Local Government Council in Edo State, a southern region of Nigeria in West Africa, were halted on Thursday when council workers staged a protest over unpaid salary arrears. The workers locked the main gate of the council secretariat, preventing all movement in and out of the premises.
The action also temporarily stopped the council chairman, Valentine Okwillagwe, from leaving the grounds as the workers maintained their position throughout the demonstration. Okay News reports that the protest was peaceful but firm, with workers insisting that their long overdue wages must be addressed.
During a telephone interview on the matter, Okwillagwe stated that the arrears being demanded were not accumulated under his administration. He emphasised that the current government, led by Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State, had maintained consistent and timely salary payments since taking office.
The chairman described the protest as influenced by political interests. He said, “What is happening is politically motivated. We are not owing any salary and, as you know, the government of Senator Monday Okpebholo has made payments of salary a top priority. The latest we have paid salaries in the local government secretariat is on the twenty fourth of every month. This month, their salaries will be paid on the sixteenth.”
Okwillagwe explained that the arrears being requested dated back many years and involved previous administrations. According to him, “What they are asking for are arrears owed them by previous administrations. I have paid them arrears for two thousand and twenty. These salaries were owed in two thousand and eleven, two thousand and twelve and two thousand and seventeen.”
He added that the backlog discovered when he assumed office included arrears for two thousand and seventeen, two thousand and twenty, two thousand and fourteen and deductions for two thousand and nineteen. Okwillagwe questioned why past chairmen faced no similar resistance, saying, “We have had chairmen before I came on board, the same NULGE chairman and workers were there; they did not lock the gate, they never protested, so why now?”
Efforts to contact the chairman of the National Union of Local Government Employees, Amend Favour, were unsuccessful as his phone remained switched off.
However, one of the protesting workers, who requested anonymity, said the demonstration had no political agenda. The worker stated, “We are not saying that the salary arrears are being owed by the present leadership of the council. However, we can decide to ask for it anytime we deem it fit. There is no political motivation behind this demand. All we want is the arrears, which can do the workers a lot of good at this time.”
