Slave Wage: EFCC Employs Nurses, Others As Casual Workers, Pays N20,000 Monthly Salary

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has allegedly been paying slave wages to some members of staff designated as casual workers, many of who have worked with the Commission for upward of five years.

Although the casual workers can be found in nearly all the zonal commands of the Commission, those who spoke exclusively to THE WHISTLER with documents, said they were employed in 2017 by Yakubu Mailafia, an Ex-Zonal Head of EFCC Benin, during the time that Ibrahim Magu served as the Chairman of EFCC.

They alleged that they had been fighting for appropriate remuneration and permanent recruitment since then to no avail.

A nurse with a Bachelor of Nursing Science (BNSc) degree, who served with the commission and was later retained is said to have demanded the appropriate remuneration for her service but the EFCC had refused to pay her the right salary.

Speaking to THE WHISTLER, the nurse, who did not reveal her name because she got a job with a government hospital, explained that after her National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) three years ago, she was asked to resume work at a clinic of the commission which was newly opened.

She said, “I served with them in 2017. Then, when I started with them as a casual staff. They were paying me N20,000, which later got to N30,000 but before I left, they were paying me N50,000. But I had to complain and protest to get that.

“I have a BSc in nursing and nobody will believe that’s what I collect as salary. It’s not up to what they pay nurses in state hospitals, not to talk of federal government hospitals.

“Although they treat their staff very well, if you’re their real staff and they employ you, they will treat you well. But if you’re different, they have a way they also treat you. That’s just a fact.

“After I finished my NYSC, they had no health practitioner there at the clinic, so they said I should just be there as a casual staff pending when they want to do recruitment.

“I’ve been there for like 4 to 5 years, I wasn’t seeing anything. They were doing recruitment and my name was not on the recruitment list . So, I said, rather than me wasting my time, I just left.”

Kenneth Ekiye, a casual worker that worked as a driver in the zone, corroborated the claims of the nurse and explained how she was maltreated.

He said he used to drive her around when there was a health challenge with any of the suspects in the custody of the EFCC.

“Together we take them to Police Clinic, and if it’s a case beyond the clinic, we will be referred to the University Teaching Hospital, Benin.

“She sometimes stayed with the suspects in handcuffs and slept with them on the same bed. You can imagine the way she suffered, only for them to bring in people that did not suffer for the job,” he explained.

Ekiye said the Commission was paying him and his colleagues N20,000 before it was later raised to N30,000 when they complained.

He said: “When the new Chairman (Bawa) came for a visit, we met him and complained that the money we are paid is not taking us anywhere, but he said it’s not him that’ll add to our pay, he said it is a rapport between the casual workers and the Zonal Commander.

“So, when he left, we met the Zonal Commander, and he said he will see what he can do. That was when they added N10,000 to us. Our salary now became N40,000.

“It was early last year (2022) that our payment increased to N40,000. See the evidence.”

Mr Ekiye also alleged that EFCC wasted their time, making them stay 6 years while raising their hopes that they will regularise their employment after 6 months, but made them redundant when new staff were recruited.

According to him, when Magu left as Chairman, the Zonal Commander assured them that the incoming chairman was going to regularise them.

The aggrieved casual worker said: “I’ve worked as casual with EFCC for 6 years, since 2017 and had driven about five directors of the Commission. Yet I was not recruited as a staff “

Ekiye said last year, in April, he attended a screening exercise in Benin Zone where drivers were needed and he was successful and did medicals but was never converted.

“We are the same people they said are not qualified, but the same people driving them round. These are some of the traumatic experiences we had with this Commission and in the end, we didn’t reap the fruits of our suffering,” he lamented.

Section 7 of the Labour Act provides that not later than three months after the beginning of a worker’s employment, the employer shall give him a written statement of employment containing the terms and conditions of employment.

However, it provides for no adequate consequence for noncompliance.

That is why the Labour Act (Amendment) Bill 2019 is now before the National Assembly.

The proposed amendment is intended to abolish the obnoxious practice of casualisation of a worker’s employment by creating a new section (Section 8) which provides that an employer has a period of not less than six months of engaging a worker to regularise his appointment as a full and permanent staff.