By Victor Ahiuma-Young

AGBOR—No fewer than 45  staff of College of Education, COE, Agbor, Delta State, whose names were allegedly removed from the Delta State central payroll in May 2013, have appealed to Governor Ifeanyi  Okowa to come to their aid by restoring their names to the state government’s central payroll.

The affected workers lamented that they have been going through hardships and unimaginable difficulties and were finding it extremely hard to meet their responsibilities to their families and dependents.

In a petition to the governor by Otolo Godspower, Ossaiga Ikechukwu and John Eboma, the workers said that the appeal became necessary for the governor to wade into the matter personally.

They recalled that they were employed into the college in 2011 with appointment letters issued to them which, they claimed were later regularized and confirmed after two years of probation in 2013.

According to them; “To our greatest surprise, our names made up of 18 senior staff and 27 junior staff were removed from the Delta State central payroll without any explanation in May, 2013. Since the removal of our names from the central payroll in 2013, series of appeals were made to the state government which led to our reinstatement into the state payroll by the immediate past governor of the state, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan which was to take effect on April 30, 2015.”

“Regrettably, our reinstatement into the state payroll had not materialize up till now even after our revalidation. This development has caused us untold hardship. The development has led to the death of two of our members with one of us gone blind while others are suffering different forms of harassment form landlords, our children school heads and indebtedness from various financial institutions among others.”

They contended that more worrisome was the fact that the College did another fresh employment in 2013 of which all the employed persons had  been confirmed and promoted neglecting 45 of us who were employed earlier in 2011.

The affected workers noted that they were invited to the Delta State Biometric Identification being handled by Heckerbella via text messages which they all participated and were issued the state Biometric Identification slip.

They expressed sadness that since then, nothing positive had come out of it, appealing to Governor Okowa to save them from hunger, hardship and untimely death by giving approval for the restoration of their names in the state central payroll.