Unpaid Salaries: Osun Lawmakers Now Sweep Chambers

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Lanre Ogunlefe, says the non-payment of civil servants’ salaries in Osun State has degenerated to the extent that he even witnessed the Majority Leader of the House of Assembly sweeping the floor of the Assembly by himself because workers refused to come to work. Ogunlefe said this during a telephone interview with Channels Television on a programme titled Sunrise Daily while reacting to the petition written by Justice Folahanmi Oloyede against Governor Rauf Aregbesola which was dismissed by the Osun legislature. Oloyede, who is one of the only 12 judges in the entire state, had come under fire by the state government and the All Progressives Congress for writing a petition against the governor and had been accused of playing partisan politics. However, Ogunlefe, who is Oloyede’s lawyer, said the allegation of financial recklessness against Aregbesola were obvious and accused the lawmakers of doing a shoddy job. He said, “The House of Assembly consists of APC and PDP members. Only APC members constituted the ad hoc committee which investigated the matter. And in a House that has both the APC and the PDP, you would expect that some PDP members would be part of the committee. “They did not even want to grant us a hearing. They said the governor had responded and I said can we have a copy of the response but they refused give it to us. “They said we should provide evidence. The evidence is there. Projects are abandoned. Hospitals are closed. A very young boy of about seven was brought to the hospital and his arm was about to be amputated because he could not get anti-tetanus injection. “And when we got to the House, the Majority Leader was sweeping the floor of the House and trying to make the House conducive for the meeting. There were no workers there and I said how can a Majority Leader be sweeping the floor? Then a policeman said, ‘You know that workers are on strike.’” The senior advocate said it was unfortunate that nearly all the states in the country could not pay salaries including oil-rich states such as Bayelsa and Delta. He said governors would curb their excesses only when the immunity clause is removed from the constitution. In his response, the Chief Whip of the House, Mr. Oladoyin Bamisayemi, said the judge had no business writing the petition. He said he and other lawmakers in the Assembly had not been paid in eight months as well. He added that some of the lawmakers had to even rely on their wives for financial support. Bamisayemi, who was also a member of the seven-man committee that investigated the allegations levelled against Aregbesola, said, “Most of the governors cannot pay salaries I agree. But why are their own judges over there not raising dust? It is unfortunate. We feel the pains of the workers; however, it is not peculiar to Osun alone. “Our Assembly was inaugurated on July 2 and we have not been paid a penny. We have not even been able to pay for training for the new members. It will interest you to know that we are being owed seven months’ salaries of the previous Assembly. I am a second term lawmaker and I am owed seven months of the last dispensation. “The lawmakers that have left will have to come back to collect their money. So, we also have problems. We all try to eke out a living here and there, relying on our wives.” http://www.punchng.com/politics/unpaid-salaries-osun-lawmakers-now-sweep-chambers/