The administration of President Bola Tinubu has come under fire from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for allegedly not paying federal employees their full compensation awards.
He bemoaned the fact that Tinubu had buried the common Nigerian under the weight of hunger and inflation by eliminating the gasoline subsidy on his first day in office.
He maintained that the removal of the fuel subsidy was a rash and careless action that has caused severe economic suffering.
Atiku said in a message posted on his X account on Sunday that the current administration has not fulfilled its pledge to provide federal public servants with a temporary wage award to lessen the impact of the elimination of subsidies.
“The administration pledged to pay a wage award to federal civil servants as a temporary buffer until the conclusion of negotiations on a new national minimum wage in an effort to manage the self-inflicted crisis.”
“Like many other promises made under this government, that promise has turned into a broken covenant,” he stated.
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The wage award was meant to act as a temporary solution while the government worked for ten months to agree on a new minimum wage, according to Atiku.
By implication, federal employees are owed ten months’ worth of unpaid wages by the federal government. But after a string of unmet promises and preventable delays, only six months have been paid,” he claimed.
According to him, each employee is due ₦35,000 per month for four months, which comes to ₦140,000 per individual.
The federal government was criticized by Atiku for displaying “callous indifference and utter disdain for workers’ welfare,” while several state administrations were commended for their responsible management of labor issues.
He also criticized the ongoing detention of labor activist Andrew Uche Emelieze, who was detained over two weeks ago for trying to plan a nonviolent demonstration against the unpaid pay awards.
He declared, “The government has now turned to tyranny and suppression of free speech instead of engaging in dialogue or fulfilling its promises.”
Speaking up for state-abandoned workers was his only “crime.”
Atiku demanded that Emelieze be freed immediately and without conditions, claiming that his imprisonment “is a chilling reminder of the authoritarian drift of the Tinubu administration, an affront to democracy, and a slap in the face of every Nigerian worker.”
