The registration exercise holding in one centre in Abuja saw affected workers trooping to Abuja, the nation's capital from the across the country, as their salaries have been delayed.
Thousands of federal civil servants, which the President Bola Tinubu’s administration has not paid since May 2023, are currently protesting in Abuja over the poor and tiring process of getting captured by the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
SaharaReporters had exclusively reported that the Nigerian Government directed 17,000 federal civil servants who had not been paid since May 2023 because their details were yet to be captured by the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) to partake in an ongoing registration exercise.
The registration exercise holding in one centre in Abuja saw affected workers trooping to Abuja, the nation's capital from the across the country, as their salaries have been delayed.
SaharaReporters, however, gathered that protest erupted when the news of a fatal accident involving some of their colleagues from Gombe for the verification got to Abuja.
A source who spoke to SaharaReporters on Tuesday, said that the police in their usual manner started to teargas the protesting workers.
"There is ongoing protest now in Abuja by federal civil servants who have not been paid since May and where asked to come to Abuja for IPPIS verification and recapturing exercise over the death of one of their colleagues among 20 others travelling to Abuja from Gombe," the source said.
According to the source, the workers are frustrated, adding that only 30 people were attended to on Monday by the IPPIS officials despite the number of the people involved. "As we speak, there are about 5,000 people gathered at the centre this morning, many of them nursing mothers and more are still on their way from across the country."
The source said that things got violent on Tuesday morning and they broke a glass. "The protesters are demanding for the decentralisation of the exercise to lessen the burden and frustration of the affected workers.
"South-West can do theirs in Lagos, South-East in Enugu or somewhere there and same for other regions instead of asking 17000 to come to Abuja and only doing 30 in one day."
While the frustrated workers are planning to protest at the office of the federal civil service boss, the source further stated that the IPPIS officials invited the security operatives who are teargassing them after people became violent in the protest.
SaharaReporters gathered that about 17,000 workers were affected while a document exclusively obtained by SaharaReporters shows that workers affected in the Ministry of Labour and Employment are up to 1,831.
According to the circular, all the affected workers are mandated to show up for a physical exercise in Abuja from Monday, October 16 to Friday, October 27, 2023, at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), Kubwa Expressway, Abuja.
Reacting to this, one of the affected workers who spoke to SaharaReporters said the government was insensitive despite the economic hardship they are currently facing due to the non-payment of their salaries since May when they decided that all the workers must show up at Abuja for the physical screening.
The registration exercise for the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) started in May 2017 and it was repeated in subsequent years and concluded in April 2023.