Former staff of the de
funct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) have staged a protest in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, over non payment of their housing allowance.
The protesters numbering over 2,000 stormed the secretariat of Oyo State Correspondent Chapel wielding placards with the inscriptions, “President Jonathan, please help us locate where our money is hanging”, “Hey! There is God ooo, why delay payment of our housing allowances since 2013,”.
The protesters said the total value of the housing allowance owed them is N400 million.
Spokesperson of the protesters, Mrs Edna Owesiri, decried a situation where their colleagues had since collected theirs while they were still owed and urged government to pay without further delay.
According to her, the money was paid to the former workers in batches and while batches 1-10 had been paid, 11 and 12 were not paid.
She lamented that some of their members had died waiting to be paid and appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to come to their aid.
Owesiri said those affected spread across Ogun, Kwara, Kogi, Osun and Oyo States, being those under Ibadon zone of PHCN before its privatization.
The protesters further urged the National Electricity Liability  Management Company, NELMCO, a body set up by the Federal Government to see to all liabilities which the government incurred during the privatization period to intervene.
“All we want the Federal Government to do for us is to ensure immediate payment of the outstanding allowance,” she said describing it as an unfair situation to pay some of their colleagues and single them out for non-payment.
“We have done all the necessary things we should do all to no avail”, she said, adding that as law abiding citizen they would not want to be seen taking laws into their hands, hence they decided to carry out the project to draw the attention of the government and members of the public to their plight.