Workers' salary arrears: Ohanaeze threatens mass protest against S'East govs; Gives Nov 30 as deadline

www.odogwublog.com reports that piqued by the pitiful condition of workers and pensioners in the South East geopolitical zone following months of unpaid wages, the youth wing of the apex Igbo socio- political organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has lashed out on governors in the zone, accusing them of insensitivity over the plights of their people.

Ohanaeze Youth Council ( OYC) threatened to mobilize Igbo youths and the masses against the governors if after November 30 they fail to clear the backlog of salary arrears of workers as well as pension arrears of retirees.

National President of OYC  who issued the ultimatum in Umuahia after receiving an award from the women wing of Ohanaeze , Abia State chapter, expressed disappointment that governors shortly after coming to power  isolate themselves from the people that voted for them.

He regretted that a lot of workers and pensioners in South East are owed for many months yet the governors who live in open affluence make no concerted efforts to mitigate  the sufferings of the workers.

Isiguzoro warned that if after November 30 the situation did not improve the governors in the zone would be  declared "enemies of Igbo land."

He specifically warned that any governor  who ignored the warning would be doing so at his own peril as he will be made to face the full wrath of Igbo youths.

The OYC helmsman said that Igbo youths would no longer fold their arms and watch the governors spread poverty using recession as  excuse .

Isiguzoro said that a lot of workers and pensioners were dying as a result of diseases and hardship occasioned by no payment of their wages and pensions , describing the action of the governors as "the worst form of  inhumanity".

His words: “Look at what is happening in the zone, workers are dying everyday;  pensioners are also dying in their hundreds daily and we have governors elected by the same workers who are  now abandoned.

" It is evil, it is unacceptable, I’m going to mobilize youths in Igbo land after 30th of November 2016”, he vowed.

Expressing his concern over the dilapidating state of roads "both federal and state roads" in the zone, Isiguzoro urged President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency on roads in the zone.

He said that all roads particularly federal and inter- state roads in the zone had all become death traps, and pleaded with Buhari to at least embark on palliative repairs of the major ones to make them passable before the Yuletide which usually witnesses increase in traffic flow.

Isiguzoro also called on the Federal Government to halt further influx if herdsmen with their cattle to South East to douse the mounting tension the ugly development is already generating across the zone.

He dedicated the award to Igbo victims of Boko Haram attacks in Northern States , as well as the detained leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra ( IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

Isiguzoro restated his earlier call for the immediate release of Kanu and other detained Biafra agitators for the sake of peace and unity of the country.
 

Photo of Ohaneze Youth leader Isiguzoro and Atiku