UPHEAVAL: POLICEMEN PROTEST OVER UNPAID WAGES IN BORNO
Hundreds of mobile policemen deployed to Borno State to assist the Military in the fight against Boko Haram took to the streets of Maidugiri, Borno state Capital, yesterday protesting non-payment of seven months allowances and promotions.
The protest caused a stir as gun shots were fired sporadically by the policemen, causing motorists and commuters to desert the streets for safety of being hit by stray bullets.
As a result, the Presidency, according to the News Agency of Nigeria, yesterday summoned the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, over the protest.
The protest, which also led to barricading of some major highways for over four hours, disrupted academic activities in many schools, as people scampered for safety along the busy Maiduguri-Damaturu-Kano Road where the state command headquarters is located.
THE PROTEST
Information later gathered that, the protests, according to some of the police officers, is in connection with their seven months unpaid allowances.
The aggrieved mobile policemen, mainly rank and file, insisted that their allowances be paid with immediate effect or they would continue to disrupt socio economic activities in the city and other official duties at the state police command.
One of the protesters, name withheld, said aside from unpaid allowances and non-promotion, the protest was further fuelled by the non-challant attitude of police authorities to their welfare.
Some other officers who spoke to reporters, also lamented that since January 2018, when they were deployed to the state on special operation, they had not been given their allowances.
They complained that many of them had to go through inhuman treatment, sleepiing on the corridor of offices on returning from duty at night.
When contacted on phone, the Borno Police Commissioner, Damian Chukwu, did not pick his calls.
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