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• Frowns at dispersal of protesting workers at finance ministry
By Bimbola Oyesola
The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), yesterday, called immediate payment of outstanding entitlements to public service employees just as it frowned at the forceful dispersal of workers who converged on the Federal Ministry of Finance on September 15 to drive home their demands for payment of outstanding entitlements.
The union Secretary-General, Joshua Apebo, noted that for the past 10 years, the union has continued to present several memoranda to the Federal Government to pay public service employees their outstanding entitlements.
“These entitlements include but are not limited to salary, promotion and elongation arrears, 1st 28th days in lieu of hotel accommodation, duty tour allowance (DTA), payment of allowance to education officers who were dislocated from Unity Schools in the North-East, disarticulation of junior secondary schools from the senior secondary schools to create vacancies in the directorate level,
regularisation of appointment of PTA teachers, etc.
“Indeed, at various annual general meetings of chairmen of the 110 federal unity schools including Federal Education Quality Assurance Service (FEQAS) in the past five years including the one held in May 2024 in Lagos, resolutions were passed and forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Education and thereafter in January this year 2025, an ultimatum was issued to the Federal Ministry of Education by
this Union to implement all the demands.”
The union reasoned that constant invasions of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) by Federal Government employees demanding payment of legitimate accumulated entitlements or protesting unfair Labour practices constitute a great embarrassment to President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda policy and this should not be allowed to continue.
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The ASCSN stressed the need for the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) to provide immediate financial backing to pay all outstanding entitlements owed Education Officers and other Public Servants without further delay.
It also recalled that when President Olusegun Obasanjo regime tried to privatise the unity schools, the ASCSN went to court, embarked on seven-week strike, mobilised leaders of thought, royal fathers, religious leaders, sister trade unions, parent teacher associations, students unions, civil society groups
It noted that the process was stopped in 2010 when President Goodluck Jonathan restored the Junior Secondary components of the Schools that had already been disarticulated in preparation for phasing out the Federal Government Colleges completely.
The leadership of the ASCSN added that it has continued to send memoranda and
letters to Council and to the Presidency emphasizing the need to restore payment of
Gratuity to Public Service employees stopped, for inexplicable reasons in 2004 when the Pension Reforms Act was enacted even through the Law did not abolish payment of gratuity to Public Servants.
“Certainly, a Trade Union that has done all this over the decades to protect the interest of their members cannot be linked to any mischievous attempt by a few misguided staff of the Federal Ministry of Finance to impede the demands of Union members,” the ASCSN stressed.
