Bishop rejects Ben Ayade’s N25 million donation, says ‘use it to pay salaries’

The Catholic Bishop of Uyo Diocese, Rt Rev Dr. John Ebebe Ayah has rejected the donation made by the Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade, in the sum of N25 million.

Ayade, a Catholic and a knight in the Church, made the donation during a recent Holy Mass.

Civil servants in the state have not been paid salaries and arrears for over four years.

Civil servants stormed the office of the Head of Service (HoS) at the state Secretariat in Calabar in May, singing solidarity songs and displaying placards with inscriptions like “Over four years without salaries, who did we offend? Yet we go to work everyday,” “The injustice too much,” “labourer deserves his wages,” “Governor Ayade please pay us our salary.”

While speaking on behalf of the protesters, the coordinator, David Iyaya, said they were aggrieved civil servants from different ministries, departments and agencies employed by the state government in 2018 but had received no salary since their employment.

He said the aim of the protest was to draw the attention of the world to their plight.

He said: “We are peaceful citizens and that is why we are demonstrating peacefully. We want the world to know our suffering. Four years is not four days. Even the HoS is somewhere here, he cannot even come out to address us and I know he has nothing to tell us.”

The Bishop who rejected the donation asked the governor to use it to offset the outstanding salaries of the state government workers instead.

Ayade donated the money to the bishop as his transportation fare back to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital

While making the donation, Governor Ayade said: “Before you depart for your station from Calabar, I will whisper to you.

“On behalf of my family and the Cross River State government, I’m presenting this N25 million to you”

In his response, the Bishop said he and the governor were from the same area of the state. He thanked him for the donation and requested that he uses the money donated and add to whatever he had to pay the salaries of the civil servants.

He said: “Kindly add the whisper to the salary of your workers. Pay outstanding pensions/gratuities. Improve the economy of the state to be more stable.”