As representatives of 21 Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] governors mounted the rostrum Saturday night at the presidential villa in Abuja to announce N1.05 billion in donation to the PDP, back in their respective states, school teachers and other state workers were enduring their second or third month of work without pay, Premium Times reports.
In some states, the indebtedness to workers stretched a year. In Ebonyi, authorities owed teachers under the Universal Basic Education scheme nearly 12 months of salaries.
In Abia State, secondary school teachers were last paid in August, while primary school teachers have been owed since October.
In Akwa Ibom State, the nation’s leading oil producer which draws more than triple of what other states receive from the federation account monthly, local government staff were on strike. Before the strike, they were forced to receive half salaries for several months, while authorities claimed they had no money.
In Cross River, the situation had worsened after months of indebtedness that state-run television, the CrossRiver Broadcasting Corporation, CRBC, shut off production last week.
The station remains off air till date. Other staff fortunate to have received reasonably up-to-date pay, have yet to be paid for November.
But on Saturday night, Cross State governor, Liyel Imoke, stood next to his Bauchi State colleague, Isa Yuguda, as Mr. Yuguda announced to a gleeful president and a shocked nation how the 21 governors who had been struggling to pay salaries long before the present oil crisis, rallied N50 million each in donation to the PDP.
“We may do more in future, but that is what we were able to raise for now,” Mr. Yuguda assured.
In all, the PDP and the president raked in over N21 billion, with donations coming from government contractors, nameless associates, and Tunde Ayeni, the head of Skye Bank, who has bought a string of government assets, including the mega telecoms carrier, NITEL/MTEL, in a process that has already become controversial.
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