By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
Days after he lost his bid to emerge the President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), more troubles are rearing for soccer administrator, Shehu Dikko, as aggrieved staff have written a petition to the Minister of Sports, Honourable Sunday Dare, alleging that they are being owed salaries.
In a copy of the letter sighted by our correspondent, the aggrieved workers cited several irregularities in respect of their engagement by the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL), led by Shehu Dikko and Mr. Salisu Abubakar.
According to the letter dated Tuesday October 11, 2022, the aggrieved persons appealed to Sunday Dare to intervene and save them from the ugly situation they are passing through.
Read the full letter below:
“The Honourable Minister,
Youth and Sports,
Package A, National Stadium,
Central Area,
Abuja.
11th October 2022
Dear Sir,
COMPLAINT ABOUT UNPAID SALARIES, BENEFITS AND REDUNDANCY OF SOME MEMBERS OF STAFF
The above subject matter refers:
We write to commend the Honourable Minister of Sports Mr. Sunday Dare on the recent positive development and happenings around sports in general and specifically football administration to that recently led to the composition of an interim management committee to run the affairs of the Nigeria professional football league (NPFL) which originally is known as Nigeria Football League (NFL) trading as Nigeria Premier League (NPL).
This indeed is a step in the right direction.
Having said this however, we the undersigned original confirmed members of staff of The Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) that were rendered redundant and whose salaries and benefits were withheld for no reasons whatsoever, by the officials of the league management company led by Mr. Shehu Dikko and Mr. Salisu Abubakar have the following complaints and demands;
1. First of all, we are bonafide members of staff of the Nigerian Professional Football League with an employment letter and confirmation letter.
2. We were all co-opted into the LMC arrangement verbally without any correspondence such as a letter of neither engagement nor a company identity card albeit we were been paid our salaries with our job description and responsibilities usurped by officials of the LMC preparatory to a premeditated redundancy lacuna.
Gradually henceforth, salaries of individual staff were been stopped tactically for no reasons whatsoever without any notice or explanations.
This caused untold hardship, unmitigated health challenges and death for some members of staff.
3. As a result of this redundancy and nonpayment of salaries,
> We lost our accommodations
> Our children and wards were thrown out of their schools for lack of school fees.
>Some ran into health challenges and even death because of suspension of health insurance cover.
> Our personal pension contribution was suspended.
> Our tax remittance was suspended
> Our housing allowances were not paid.
> Our leave allowances were also not paid.
In the light of the above, we are appealing passionately to the Honourable Minister of Sports, Mr. Sunday Dare as a father and leader to look into our plight with compassion and address this anomaly once and for all in the following areas;
1. We have been trained and have worked as foundation members of staff of the Nigerian Professional Football League and contributed in growing the league to what it became.
We commit to the fact that we love our profession and our jobs with passion and wish to come back to our duty post.
2. In terms of the welfare and the well being of these members of staff of the Nigerian Professional Football League, we appeal to the Honorable minister to empathies with our plights in addressing the under listed request.
a. Our outstanding salary arrears and allowances should be paid to us to ameliorate our sufferings.
b. Restoration of our Health Insurance coverage.
c. Remittance of our accumulated pension contribution.
d. Remittance of our withheld personal income tax of the under listed members of staff.
In conclusion, we would like to emphasize that these members of staff of the Nigeria Professional
League NPFL rendered redundant-for just no cause by the management of the dissolved LMC, have gone through a lot of sufferings in the past years. In the light of the above, we are looking forward to the
Honorable Minister of Sports to take a swift and positive action on our request.
Please find attached the breakdown of the salary arrears of the affected members of staff.”
Efforts to reach Shehu Dikko to react to the allegations proved abortive, as he was yet to pick calls or respond to SMS and WhatsApp messages sent as at time of filing the report.
