Dear Mr. President
We are interns ( Doctors, Dentist,
Pharmacists, Optometrist and Laboratory Scientists) working with the ministry
of defence at the following hospital: armed forces hospital Kaduna, 68th
armed forces hospital Lagos, Nigerian Navy Reference hospital Ojo Lagos,48th
armed forces hospital Lagos, 442 Nigerian Air force hospital ikeja. We are writing to inform you of the
injustice currently been meted out on us.
In February early this year, about eight
months ago, we received appointment letters from the ministry of defence asking
us to come work with them at their various military hospital establishments.
Having already endured gruesome conditions during the examination and interview
process for the job, we considered ourselves very lucky successful candidates
as we enthusiastically rushed to collect the appointment letters and commenced
work accordingly.
Ever since our appointment we have dutifully
carried out our assignments for eight months, but to our uttermost dismay, the
ministry of defence; our employers have bluntly refused to pay us our salaries.
In this light, we have written numerous letters to the relevant authorities,
begging them, we have cried, dialogued, but they have constantly turned a deaf
ear to our plea.
When we visited the ministry of defence
head quarters in Abuja, sometime in August, we were told that they do not have
our salaries because our payment was not reflected in this year’s budget! Mr.
President, you will agree with us that it is very ludicrous for an employer to
advertise vacancies for positions in the dailies, conduct interviews and
subsequently hire employee only to tell them eight months after working that their
salaries was not included in the yearly budget.
Sir, we sadly say that this nefarious act
has been occurring repeatedly for many years now, we learnt that the ministry
of defence is in the habit of treating interns like slaves, they hastily employ
them and then keep their salaries for months, when the interns become
frustrated and begin to clamour for their wages, they are punished by a slash in
the salaries or at best receive only half of their one year pay. Your Excellency sir, we have no one else to turn
to, because the culprits in the ministry of defence have become embolden by
their ability to get away with this callous acts for years. An official from
the ministry of defence actually said this to us, and we quote “what
can you (the interns) do if we decide not to pay your salaries? After all, you
are ordinary interns, no one cares about you!”
Sir, we are writing to you because as our
leader, we know that you have invested interest in the development of youths in
this country. This is why on the 11th of October 2011 you launched
the youth enterprise with innovation in Nigeria scheme to harness the creative
energy of the young people in Nigeria. Unfortunately Mr. President, there are
some individuals in your administration that do not share the same goals as you
do. They believe that they can constantly harass, intimidate and disenfranchise
youths in this country, and they continue to do this with great impunity. Sir,
as a man of integrity we are hoping that you would not stand for this. That is
why we are aptly bringing it to your notice.
What saddens us most is that even when the
Nigerian medical Association was on strike and there appeared to be a halt in
the provision of medical services in this country, we were still working
tirelessly! In the peak of the Ebola medical fiasco that nearly swallowed the
nation, we were relentless in our work. Without pay, we showed up to work every
morning to care for our patients. Sir, in all fairness, we can say that we did
our part to stifle the spread of the Ebola virus within the shores of our
country. And for this great feat what have we asked for, is it a rise in our
pay? Is it a well deserved increase in our hazard allowance? Is it a medal of
honor as a national hero working during a time of disaster? No sir, what we have asked for instead is
that our basic salary be paid. We wish to be paid for the work we have done,
nothing more!
Mr President, not only are we fresh
graduates that are newly experiencing what it is like working in the civil
service, a number of us are married, we have children, we are uncles, aunts, we
have dreams, aspirations and lots of responsibilities. Ironically, the
non payment of our salaries has made it practically impossible for us to meet
our numerous responsibilities to ourselves, families and the society. Sir, we are hungry, our children are
hungry, and it is disheartening to see that we have gradually become a burden
to those that truly love us. They have being of great assistance for eight
months already, we cannot continue to mount tremendous financial burdens on
them. Please we need your help, we need it urgently.
Your Excellency, you have repeatedly said
that theft is not corruption, indeed, we totally agree with you. Since we
cannot imagine that the culprits of these stoically nefarious acts in the
ministry of defence are only corrupt. How can one keep the salaries of their
employees for months, abandon them, make them work without pay, then clad
yourselves with the cloak of corruption? No, they must be thieves!
Even though it is clear that the ministry
of defence is the one to be blamed for the non payment of our salaries, we are
forced to also sadly inform you of the uncanny part played by the commanders in
the respective hospitals of primary posting. These are people we expect to be
more sympathetic to our plight, because they are the ones we work for; the
direct recipient of our services. But they have resulted to victimizing us.
They have repeatedly threatened us; they said they would read out the armed
forces act to us. We were threatened that if we continued to ask for our
salaries our programs will be extended. One commander actually threatened not
to sign us out of the program. In all these, we believe that the greatest
injustice was the wrongful eviction of the interns working with the 68th
army hospital Lagos without prior notice.
Mr. President, we are not slaves, this is
our country, what crime have we committed to be treated this way? Except that
we opted to serve and are still serving our great country Nigeria. We have heeded
to the words so often recanted in our national anthem, “arise oh compatriots’,
Nigeria call obey”. Here we are working for our nation, giving our best. But Sir, to allow this mayhem to go
unpunished is tantamount to allowing the labour of our heroes passed to be in
vain, God forbid! Our holy book admonishes that “a labourer is entitled to
his wages” therefore Sir, we should not be punished for asking for our
salaries.
It is our total confidence, that you will
speedily do something about this grave injustice. God bless you as you do. God
bless the federal republic of Nigeria.
Respectfully,
Ministry
of Defence INTERNS
Tags
Opinion