Civil servants in Osun State yesterday took to the street to protest the alleged non-payment of five months salaries and other benefits due workers by the state government.

The workers, led by the Chairman of the Trade Union Congress, TUC, in the state, Mr. Olatunji Akinyemi, marched through the Osogbo/Gbongan Road, carried various placards with inscription such as “Pay our salaries”, “Our members are dying of hunger” while chanting anti-government songs and bringing vehicular movement to a halt.

The civil servants said apart from the failure of the Governor Rauf Aregbesola-led administration to pay outstanding salaries, the same government had refused to remit pension contributions, deducted from their previous salaries, to various retirement savings accounts.

The workers claimed the governor had used state fund meant to pay workers and carry out projects in the state to campaign for the All Progressives Congress, APC, and left workers to suffer untold hardship

The state government while responding to the protest said that salary issues cannot be divorced from the revenue crisis hitting Nigeria as a whole. The government also sought the worker’s understanding.

In a statement signed by the media aide to the governor, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, the governor said he recognises the right of the workers to seek for the payment of salaries and entitlements which is legitimately theirs, but stressed on the problem of crushing revenue crisis that has hit Nigeria as the major cause of the non-payment of salaries and benefits

According to him; ‘’What is required at this stage is for all and sundry to properly understand the genesis of this whole saga which will be helpful rather than being viewed as a deliberate act on the part of the government.’’