|
Listen to article
|
Civil servants in Anambra State discovered substantial cuts to their February wages after the government enforced a policy deducting pay from workers who skipped Mondays, though many say the reductions far exceed what they should have lost for the days they missed.
Some staff at the Jerome Udoji State Secretariat in Awka received as little as N3,500 or N10,000 for the month despite normally earning tens of thousands more. Workers who spoke to journalists said colleagues who missed only one or two Mondays reported deductions exceeding N80,000, suggesting errors in how penalties were calculated.
The wage cuts stem from the state’s effort to break compliance with sit-at-home protests called by the Indigenous People of Biafra, which for years had disrupted economic activity every Monday across southeastern Nigeria. Authorities announced in early February that salaries would be adjusted based on attendance, with pro-rata payments replacing full wages for those who stayed home.
But the implementation has triggered confusion and anger among employees who say the math doesn’t add up.
“Out of my total salary of over N80,000, I received just N3,500,” said one worker from the Ministry of Information, who requested anonymity. Another described a colleague who was paid only N10,000 for the entire month after deductions.
An employee who said he missed two Mondays reported losing more than N80,000, far beyond what he calculated should have been withheld. “I think it was miscalculated, as two Mondays were not supposed to be up to that amount,” he said.
Read also:
Workers said the cuts appeared inconsistent, with some who missed multiple days receiving smaller penalties than colleagues who stayed home once or twice. The discrepancies suggested computational errors rather than a uniform policy applied evenly across the civil service.
Information Commissioner Law Mefor defended the reductions Tuesday, describing them as punishment for failing to report for duty on Mondays. He said the government required staff to clock in and out on those days to document attendance, and anyone who failed to do so was treated as absent regardless of whether they claimed to have worked.
“If you came to work on Mondays, but you didn’t clock in, and didn’t clock out, it means that you didn’t come to work because there is no evidence to show that you came to work,” Mefor said.
He did not address complaints that the deductions appeared disproportionate or miscalculated.
The sit-at-home protests began years ago as a form of civil disobedience linked to IPOB’s campaign for an independent Biafran state. What started as voluntary observance gradually became enforced through intimidation, with armed groups punishing those who opened businesses or traveled on Mondays.
The weekly shutdowns crippled commerce in Anambra and neighboring states, costing businesses billions of naira and disrupting education and healthcare. Governors and security agencies struggled to convince residents it was safe to ignore the directives, as attacks on violators continued sporadically.
Anambra’s decision to dock civil servants’ pay represents one of the more aggressive tactics authorities have deployed to undermine the protests. By making compliance financially painful for government workers, officials hope to demonstrate that Mondays are normal working days and encourage private sector activity to resume.
Whether the policy will succeed or backfire depends partly on whether the state can administer it fairly. The reports of miscalculated deductions suggest administrative systems may not be equipped to track attendance accurately or apply penalties consistently across thousands of employees.
If workers believe the cuts are arbitrary or punitive beyond what was promised, the policy could breed resentment and legal challenges rather than compliance. Some civil servants have already begun discussing whether to contest the deductions through unions or the courts.
The government has not announced plans to review the February calculations or address complaints about errors. Officials have instead emphasized that the policy will continue, with March salaries expected to reflect the same attendance-based formula.
For workers who depend on full monthly wages to meet expenses, even a single miscalculated deduction can create immediate hardship. The complaints suggest that whatever the policy’s merits in principle, its execution has left many feeling unfairly penalized for absences they say were brief or nonexistent.
