Citizens of the United States of America, US, working in the Nigerian civil service have cried out over 9 months unpaid salaries by the Nigerian Government.
The US citizens have also been evicted by their landlords while their property have been seized.
The National Director for High Performance with the Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports Development, Dr. Angie Taylor in a Statement cried out to the Nigerian Government to come to their aide as they are being owed over 9 months salaries and other emoluments.
Taylor said that she and her colleagues were engaged to work in Nigeria since November 2013 by the Ministry of Sports, and expressed disappointment that even as foreigners, they could be treated in such a manner.
She said, “We have been owed our salaries sincerely the beginning of January 2016 and it has been very difficult, as some of us have taken up loans while others have even gone bankrupt as I speak to you but the surprising thing is that nobody in the ministry cares about what we are going through.”
“There are many occasions when we are aware that they receive allocations and we approach them, they always told us that there was no money, this is not good for us as we all have families in the US, UK and also here in Nigeria that depends on us.
“We have met with the House Committee to discuss this lack of payment of our salaries for over 9 months and for the additional expected that we have incurred while working within the ministry and also for housing rentals because so many of us have been evicted from our homes by our Nigerian Landlords as well as personal properties being seized just in August 2017, this is how bad we are suffering over this issue.
“We have tried very diligently because we love this country and we are not trying to bring any embarrassment to His Excellency President Buhari, so we decided to work quietly within the Ministry because we admit that there is suffering going on in Nigeria and so we want to be considerate.
“My humble appeal to H. E President Buhari, the Honourable Minister Barr.Solomon Dalung and the leadership of the National Assembly is that they would be faithful and pay us based upon the legal binding contract that we signed and have good faith that they would pay us so that we can stop the suffering.
“Now we understand how Nigerian workers are suffering when they are owed for several months because we are in the same situation today under the Ministry of Youths & Sports Development, we are suffering even though We are foreigners just like the Nigerians working with us who don’t have any other means of livelihood apart from the salaries that they receive from the Ministry and it is not fair.”
While responding to the consequences of What this situation may cause Nigeria in the next major sports tournament, Mrs. Taylor insisted that despite these salaries’ backlogs, they have not been deterred as they have continued to use these personal monies to fund programs to take care of athletes because the athletes needed to be taken good care of as much as possible throughout the duration of their employment with the ministry. She said that the possibility of Nigeria not performing optimally in the next Common Wealth Games in 2018 remains imminent if this situation persists.
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