Date: 2019-02-21

About 200 staff of the Kwara state owned hotel, Kwara Hotels, Ilorin allegedly relieved of their duties illegally have appealed to the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki and the state governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed to come to their aid over the non-payment of their outstanding salaries, cooperatives deductions, among others so as to bring new lease of life to them and their families.

The affected workers were allegedly sent away from work on May 25, 2017, by police officers, who prevented them from entering the hotel premises to work, and without issuing them sack letters till date.

The branch chairman of National Union of Hotel and Personal Services, Kwara Hotel Chapter, Ochennika Mohammed, while speaking in an interview with journalists in Ilorin recently, recalled that on the faithful day, four detachments of fully armed mobile police officers were invited to Kwara Hotel to prevent them from entering and send them away from from work.

He lamented that some of the affected workers have since died because they couldn't afford to buy the needed drugs to survive, while others who couldn't get another job since then have been living lives of economic hardship.

Mohammed, explained that those who have been unemployed since then could no longer pay their children schools fees, while others are been continually harassed by their landlords because of house rents debts.

According to him, "Till date, we were not served any sack letter. Our only offence is that we asked Harmony holdings (Government’s company operating the hotel) to improve the deteriorating standard of the hotel, and pay our salaries, and emoluments.

"In fact, we met severally with Special Assistant to the governor on Investment Mr. Yomi Ogunsola, who agreed with us on our agitations, but unfortunately instead of implementing our agreements, the next thing they did was to bring fully armed police offices to the gate of Kwara Hotel on May 25, 2017 to send us away from work.

"Till date, no letter of retrenchment was given us and our outstanding salaries, cooperative deduction's and other emoluments were not paid"

Mohammed therefore pleaded with the Senate President, Dr. Saraki to intervene in the crisis, and also urged Governor Ahmed to pay their salaries and other requests as agreed by his aide Mr. Ogunsola.

He also commended various interventions of the leaderships of the NLC, TUC, DSS in the state during the period and also enjoined them to prevail on the government to see reason with them and come to their aid.