Staff of the independent National Electoral Commission, in Nasarawa State have protested the non payment of their training allowance.
The staffs also said one of the colleague, Hassan Lawal who was knocked down after the training, died while waiting for the allowance.
The commission staff who preferred to be known as anonymous said Tuesday April 25, 2017 was a sad day for the staff of Commission, because a colleague Mr. Hassan Lawal who was attached to Obi Local Government of Nasarawa State was killed by a fire service Van in Lafia at the end of a two days training of the staff of the commission ahead of the continue Voters Card registration exercise.
He said the training drawn five participants each from the 13 Local governments in the state, bringing the number to 65 participants.
Blueprint learnt that the tragedy struck when all participants for the training were unhappy due to non payment of their allowance by the commission.
Our source said the workers left the training venue with anger because they have expended what they came with from their various Local Governments.
“When we closed from the training everyone went on his or her separate ways angry because we were told there is no money until Monday.
“Later that evening we got a call from one of our colleague who was speaking with Lawal suddenly he got knocked down, to inform us about the tragedy incident. He told us that Lawal and one of the colleagues went out to the roadside to get some fruits, the two were standing by the high way, suddenly a fire service Van was coming in a very high speed, while a J5 bus was at the same time was trying to turn at a U-turn close to PDP secretariat Lafia.
“The fire service vehicle hit the bus and the bus loosing control of its balance roll severally to the other side of the road, knocked down Mr Lawal Hassan, while the other colleague who were together with him escape.
On the training allowance, the commission staff said” Regarding our training allowances, we were told at the beginning of the training that we are entitled to N5000 each for the two days duration of the training (ie N2500 for each day). At the end of the training on
Tuesday, when we enquire about the money, they told us that there was no money, that we should check back and as I speak to you no one has been given a dim.
“Many staff left the training ground unhappy, this is because lots of them had as at that time used off what they came with.
“The most annoying part is that, our colleagues from other states got their money (N5000) training allowance immediately after the training, at the training ground! So why is our own allowances in Nasarawa state going through hard times to get to us!? Indeed it was a bad experience all along! Couple with the painful dead of our dear colleague Mr Hassan Lawal”.
