Employees urge Senate to disqualify ministerial nominee for inability to manage personal enterprises, indebtedness to staff 

The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio and the entire Senate have been called upon to disqualify a ministerial nominee, Alhaji Mohammed Idris in the ongoing screening of ministerial nominees by the Senate.

 

The Niger State nominee, Mohammed Idris is accused of his inability to manage his own businesses which have resulted in owing his workers arrears of salaries currently causing them untold hardship.

 

Idris is further accused of being indifferent to the welfare of his workers.

Idris, a publisher of Blueprint newspaper and the defunct The Market, is alleged to owe his workers and staff members a huge arrears of salaries.

 

Some of the affected persons said that they are owed three years arrears of salaries, alleging that the practice is ‘serial’.

 

Also, the affected persons, it was gathered, said their families have been dislocated. And that they have lost self-worth and esteem due to the debts they are owing as they could no longer meet their economic and social responsibilities to their families.

 

It was further gathered that they could not send their children to school, pay house rent nor afford hospital bills, among other unbearable challenges they are facing.

 

One of the ex-employees has reportedly lost his sight and consequently, thrown into a pathetic health condition resulting from lack of money.

 

The ex-staff of the Blueprint, it was gathered, was among the disengaged staff when the company said it could no longer pay workers’ mo monthly salaries.

Worried by this development, a group of persons comprising the ex-employees and their family members have cried to the Senate to drop Idris in the ongoing screening of ministerial nominees and compel him (Mohammed Idris) to pay them their salaries.

 

The Frontier reports that the ex-employees are praying the Senate to compel Idris to do the needful by fulfilling his obligation to them.

In 2018, the company disengaged some staff members on the ground that it could not pay their monthly salaries. But said it was committed to offset the salary arrears owed them. However, the company has failed to fulfill the obligation, despite efforts to get the company to pay.