77 Months Unpaid Salary: Taraba Governor Dragged to Court
Governor Darius Dickson Ishaku of Taraba State has been dragged to the National Industrial Court.
Though, while the Governor is yet to settle the ongoing 30,000 National minimum wage imbroglo with the organized labour, he was dragged to court by some non-indigenous workers of the defunct Nigeria Sunrise Newspaper.
The unpaid 77 months salaries of the 18 workers was said to have been accumulated to about N73 million Naira.
You will recall that the defunct Newspaper was established by the late Governor of the State, Danbaba Suntai but went out of circulation shortly after the 2012 plane crash that rendered him incapacitated till he finally gave up the ghost.
According to their lawyer, M.Y Saleh (SAN), who spoke to journalist said, “The State Government refused to absorb them into the State Civil Service like their counterpart simply because they are not indigene and that is why they seek legal means to address their predicament.”
According to one of the affected workers, he said, “Before resolving to court, we wrote a complainant letter to the public Complaints Commissionon and the commission did the needful which also wrote the defendants on 23rd May, 2018 likewise other peaceful means were also adopted.”
A competent court sitting in Jos, the capital of Plateau State, was said to have been assigned with the responsibility of hearing/presiding over the case.
According to the lawyer, he quoted that, “Affirming the refusal of the defendants to pay their salaries and entitlements of the claimants because of their indigenous status is unlawful. They pleaded with the court to as a matter of urgency call the defendant to order.”
Alongside with the Governor that was dragged to court includes, Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Sam Adda, Commissioner of Information and Reorientation, Danjuma Adamu and the defunct Publishing House.
Efforts made to confirm the receipt of the court summon by the government prove abortive as the Commissioner of Information were not yet reachable.
According to them “we wrote a complaint letter to the Public Complaints Commission who in turns wrote to the 5th defendant on the matter and the 5th defendant, through its Managing Consultant/Chief Executive Officer (CEO), responded via a letter to the Commission dated the 23/5/2018 confirming our story and who also attached a list containing our names, dates of employment and salaries, among other information.”
