By Maduka Nweke
Following the meager salaries they receive, civil servants in various states have beeged their governors to build housing estates for them to ameliorate their suffering.
They see the housing estates to be built by the government, which would be subsidised, as the only facility that will sustain them on their low salaries. They argued that senior government officials who enjoy huge salaries, huge travel and leave allowances still have government quarters free of charge. One of the civil servants in the Federal Inland Revenue, Benin City, Mr. Abdul Kyari said that senior government officials do not care about the junior staffers despite the fact that they are the ones that really do the work.
Kyari said, “How can those who receive huge salaries, all the allowances and other incentives be quartered while the ones that eat from hand to mouth are left and victimized anytime there is problem.
“My grouse is that most of us live in faraway cities yet no staff bus but anytime any of us comes late owing to one or other problems, the way and manner the section head will treat the person will surprise you.
“We need to be treated like other civil servants in other establishments because we all working for the same federal government,” he stated.
Another respondent, Mrs. Katharine Abioye of Water Corporation said that government feels that the junior staffers are no threats to them.
“Those who know the secrets of government are feared by the senior staffers else they will expose what the government and their right hand people do not want the public to know. I don’t know why people do not remember their promises when they are looking for the job. Some will be funding agitation and when the benefits of the agitation come, they junior staffers who form the tools of the protest will be sidelined. It is sheer wickedness. It shows no conscience or fear of God at all, “he noted.
Abioye agreed that there could be minus and plus to what we know and see as junior workers but what we are saying is that we should also be considered. “If you give to those who have, you are increasing the purses of the rich and impoverishing the poor the more. The idea of building estates for civil servants should not be luxury. It should be enablers to the job. If you accommodate your staffers, they will be ready for any job anytime any day because whenever they are needed, you go to the quarters and summon them and it will not take time to assemble them. Everybody should that about tomorrow because nothing lasts forever. The only thing permanent in life is change,” he stated.