Barely 24hours after Oyo State government announced the sack of 341 workers due to alleged irregularities in their records, the affected workers have approached the court to seek redress and petition the Civil Service Commission.
FreshPage reports that 41 ghost workers were discovered and 341 workers were exposed with irregular records from staff audit carried by Oyo State Government in 2019.
It would be recalled that the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Engr Seyi Makinde, Mr. Taiwo Adisa in a statement issued on Wednesday, insisted that the implementation committee of the Oyo State 2019/2020 Civil/Public Servants Audit and Payroll Re-engineering/Validation Exercise recommended the removal of 41 staff classified as ‘ghost workers’.
Counsel to the affected workers, Mukhtar Aderogba, told DAILY POST that he has notified the Local Government Service Commission on the resolve of the affected individuals to seek redress in the Court.
Aderogba who spoke with DAILY POST on Thursday alleged that the government did not allow the workers to explain themselves before they were sacked.
“What happened was that the government embarked on a screening exercise for civil servants at the local government. At the end of the screening, they said that some workers were indicted and there were irregularities in their documents.
“Upon that instead of affording the workers to explain themselves and defend the allegations against them, what we heard was that the government mounted pressure on the affected workers to tender their letters of voluntary retirement.
“So, when the pressure was so much, some of them rendered their letters of voluntary retirement. But, there were some who said that they were not involved in any irregularities. They said that they are not going to tender any letter.
“The government now served the affected workers letters of compulsory retirement. So, it is one of such persons that I am currently representing. Even though, some other workers have approached me to also represent them.
“So, the place we are now is that we have served the local government service commission a letter given them notice of our intention to a Court of law. So, that is the stage we are now.
“But, if the government follow a proper line, by reversing the compulsory retirement, we will not need to proceed to Court, but once our demands are not properly addressed, we will have no option than to approach a Court of law.”
