Many states in Nigeria are facing serious economic crunch and this is biting hard on staff of the various state governments, Huhuonline.com can authoritatively reveal.
Apart from Lagos and Rivers states which, according to financial analysts, can meet the challenges of running the states without much support from the Federal Government, the other 34 states solely depend on allocations from the Federal Government for survival.
Though the Federal Government claims that the country’s economy is strong, analysts believe that the problems faced by the state governments are offshoots of the financial challenges the Federal Government is facing either as a result of the fall in the price of crude oil or because politicians are busy spending money on elections.
Many workers in the country including those in the Federal Civil Service experienced a very drab Christmas leading to President Goodluck Jonathan tendering an apology at his campaign flag-off. However, he claimed then that the delay was because he was fighting corruption in the system.
But currently in some states, workers are being owed as much as five months salary and this is causing serious disquiet across states.
For example, workers in Oyo State are now battling with lack of salary for two months while pensioners in the state complain that they have not been paid their pensions for about 23 months.
Judiciary workers in the state are being owed their wages since November 2014, while other civil servants said they were paid up till December of that year. This means that no worker in the state has received salary in year 2015.
Ademola Ayoade, the Chairman of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria, Oyo State branch, confirmed that the workers in the judicial arm of government were only paid up to November.
The pensioners, who protested on Thursday, said through their leader, Remi Babatunde, that the state government was owing members 23 months pension arrears, totaling N23 billion.
In Ogun State, some government offices were shut on Thursday as workers embarked on strike over the challenges of the government to meet some financial obligations.
Apart from complaints about welfare, teachers in the state had complained that the state government had emptied their co-operative accounts.
Some workers in Edo State also told Huhuonline.com that the situation is the same in the state. Many of them are being owed months of salary even though the State government is battling hard to offset some of the arrears. Some of the workers recently took to the streets in protest as a result of the months of salary being owed them.
But some of the workers expressed understanding with the state government adding that the state was handicapped since it is not getting enough from the Federation Account.
In Osun State, though the government is still battling with non-payment of salary, it has reduced the pressure with some savings.
An aide of Governor Rauf Aregbesola, who said he is not in a position to make known the government efforts, however said his boss was able to save some money when things were a bit balanced in the state.
“He had learnt a lesson sometime ago when he could not meet the salaries of the workers. After then, he began to save and this helped the situation,” he said.
Even at that, Huhuonline.com learnt that workers in the state were still grumbling.
In Kogi State, some workers now make do with half salary while others keep to fate.
In Ekiti State, former Governor Kayode Fayemi was said to have handed over a one-month salary arrears of workers to his successor, Ayodele Fayose, after he relied on banks for loans to pay salaries while he was in office.
It is learnt that Fayose is not also finding it easy. He recently appealed for understanding from staff of the state.
Benue state is one of the 36 states that had even battled salary issues even before the fall in oil price.
While the workers were groaning late last year, the State Governor, Gabriel Suswan, was among the other state governors on the platform of the PDP who contributed handsomely to the campaign by President Goodluck Jonathan for re-election.
The situation has not been different in states like Ondo, Abia and Enugu where the state governors are battling to meet the salary requirements of their staff.
Wale Sadeeq, the Special Assistant to Governor Abiola Ajimobi on Media, attributed the delay in payment of salaries in Oyo state to the dwindling allocation from the Federation Account, adding that the last allocation the state got from the Federation Account was N2.6 billion as against the N5.9 billion needed to pay workers’ salaries.
For the pension, he said the Ajimobi government met that N6.5 billion of pension fund had been stolen by some government officials during former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala’s administration and that this is one of the challenges facing the current government.
The Oyo State Commissioner for Finance, Zachaeus Adedeji, said the state was battling with a 28 percent reduction in allocation from the Federation Account.
This may be true. Osun and Rivers states have had cause to battle the Federal Government over cut in the allocations to the state.
