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MEMBERS of the Anambra State Vigilante group, yesterday protested the non-payment of their eight months’ salary arrears by the state government. The protesters who besieged the Government House Awka, came from various communities in the state. They blocked the entrance to the office complex of the Senior Special Adviser to governor Willie Obiano on Security Matters. The aggrieved members who spoke to newsmen , lamented that they were passing through pains given the failure of the government to pay them their paltry N10,000 monthly salary for the past eight months. According to Mr. Okechukwu Nweke from Nise community, “When Peter Obi was the governor, he pays us well. But since Peter Obi left office, we have not been paid our salary. Our monthly salary is N10,000. For eight months now we have not been paid. Before we are paid cash but when Willie Obiano came on board he said we were going to be paid through the bank. We agreed but since then till now, no kobo has been paid that is why we have come to protest.” Another vigilante member, Mr Echezona Onyenwe from Oko community in Orumba North council area, alleged that “few members who have ‘longer legs’ have been paid but the rest of us were not,” lamenting that “they are treating us like animals; they keep postponing the payment of our salary, telling us cock and bull story.” Contacted, the Senior Special Advisers to the governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. James Eze who spoke in the presence of his Security Matters counterpart, Mr Ostar Christopher, dismissed the protesters’ claims, saying “they are few persons who have minor issues with their banks as the government now pays them through the bank and would be corrected shortly.”
Vanguard
