By Esther Onyegbula

Lagos—Disgruntled officers of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) and Federal Task Force under the management of Federal roads Management authority, (FERMA) have accused an unnamed Lagos State coordinator of the programme of owing them three years salaries.

The officers, during a protest yesterday at the office of the National Human Rights Commission, Oshodi, Lagos, equally protested against alleged extortion by some executives of the programme.

The protesters accused their National officers and chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Lagos of being responsible for subjecting them to dehumanising condition and extorting money from them, adding that the management was using the SURE-P/FERMA job to exploit desperate job seekers for their selfish political gains.

The protesters carrying placards with offensive inscriptions sang solidarity songs, alleging that they paid outrageous sums before they were employed, adding that three years after resumption of duties they were yet to be paid a dime.

They said at the commencement of the programme in 2013, applicants paid N32, 500 each for uniform while additional N5, 000 was paid for the procurement of the SURE-P forms. They alleged further that the forms were picked at the residence of a PDP chieftain, with a promise that they would be trained in recognised institutions in the country.

One of the protesters, Mrs Ayodele Arit, told Vanguard, that she lost her pregnancy while undergoing rigorous training exercises in the course of the programme, yet I was not paid a dime for all the trouble I went through.

not able to pay salaries simply because there is no money, you can begin to quantify the loses that we collectively suffer because of the failure of law and orderAbigail Nene lamented that she lost her husband. “I lost my sick husband while doing this stupid work because I hardly had the time to take proper care of him. I expended all I had on the work because of the prospect I thought was in it being a Federal Government thing but at the end of the day, it was tales of regrets everywhere,”

According to the coordinator of the protest, Aderibigbe Kayode Vincent; “We heard from a source within the Presidency that a PDP chieftain in Lagos (names withheld) told Mr President he paid us N350, 000 each. This is a big lie. We have not been paid a dime for the three years we have worked. We have over 70,000 staffs and they owe all of us. So, I don’t know where he got that figure from.

“We ought to have had this protest on the eve of the governorship elections but because they knew it will negatively affect the chances of the PDP at the polls, they called us and begged that we should shelve it. We went to their office on the Friday before the election as earlier scheduled and we waited till 7pm and they refused to show up and address us.

“We already wrote all the appropriate authorities on this ugly development including the police, ICPC, EFCC, our lawyer and others and they advised that we embark on the protest if not our money will not be paid.”