Ministry workers flee as lepers protest in Delta

Workers in Delta State Ministry of Women
Affairs and Community Development took
to their heels yesterday, when lepers
marked this year’s World Leprosy Day by
staging protest, demanding increase in
their monthly stipends, feeding and
payment of arrears.
They barricaded the new Anwai Road,
where the ministry is located, and vowed
to remain there until their demands are
met as officials of the ministry took to their
heels for fear of being brutalised.
The lepers, on the platform of Persons
Affected with Leprosy, PALs, who came
from their settlement at Eku in Ethiope
East local Government Area of the state,
accused the ministry officials of tampering
with their allowances. Some of the placards
carried by the protesters read:
“We are dying of
hunger, our children
are starving,” “In 2017
you must pay us
N15,000 or we return
to the road,” “Is there
any market for the
poor among others?

A leper Chairman of the Eku settlement,
Mr. Lucky Egbo, and Secretary, Paul Oke,
in a letter of reminder to the Commissioner
for Women Affairs and Community
Development, Mrs. Omatsola Williams,
insisted that the six months arrears owed
them should be paid. While also
demanding increase in their monthly
allowance from N3,500 to N15,000, they
said they should be fed twice a day instead
of once.
Contacted, the commissioner, Mrs
Williams, said the lepers’ demands are
being looked into, adding that they were
not abandoned by the Governor Ifeanyi
Okowa’s administration. She, however,
said what was being owed the lepers under
the present administration was this January
stipend, saying that the five months being
owed by the past administration was being
looked into.
Alabatvnews.