Following the peaceful protest by health workers of the Bola Tinubu Diagnostic Centre in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) premises over their pending six months unpaid salaries, the Lagos State Ministry of Health has asked the protesting workers to take their case to Deux Nigeria Limited since the state has settled their outstanding arrears with their parent company.

 

This was according to the State’s Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Modele oshunkeyisi on Monday in Ikeja after over 65 health workers from the Centre stormed the ministry to demand for their pending payment.

 

“You are not a Lagos State staff but of Duex Project. It is best you go meet your employer to sort the issue out,” she said.

 

Another speaker from the government, whose name could not be verified, added that government has cleared its dues with Deux Nigeria Limited, who employed the workers.

 

But the confused workers, who ran to the ministry to help them pressurize their parent company to pay them the arrears, expressed their shock with the way they were asked to go fight for themselves since they are not staff of the ministry.

 

“With the government also chasing us away, we have now lost interest in forging ahead with the job. We are no longer interested in this work. All we have decided now is to march down to Duex project and demand it pay us off so we can go do better things with our lives,” one of the doctors from the centre said.

 

 

The worker, who pleaded anonymity, added: “We wrote a letter to the governor but no reply. So, unanimously, we hit the road and demanded for our payment, because Deux told us the state hasn’t paid them, we wanted to hear from the horse’s mouth. Only for the government to tell us it owes Deux nothing.”

 

The workers, who after hearing from the Ministry of Health, decided to stage a peaceful protest to Deux’s head office, where they were alleged to have been chased out by members of the Nigerian police, who were invited by the company management.

 

“They used tear gas and guns to chase us out of the building as if we are common criminals,” one of the protesting worker told THISDAY on phone.

 

When THISDAY contacted the General Manager of Deux Nigeria Limited, Mr. Wale Awogbemi, he said he had no comment on the police harassment of the workers. He was also unwilling to talk on the issue of the unpaid salaries.

But the Human Resource Officer of the firm, Mr. Tayo Dogo, denied police harassment, stating that policemen were only called in when the protesters started burning tyres and then blocked the main entrance.

 

It would be recalled that on September 2, the workers made their first peaceful protest to Deux’s head office in Ikoyi to demand for their payment, but the company management pleaded they give them one week to sort out their outstanding salaries.

 

By Rebecca Ejifoma

This Day