No fewer than two federal civil servants in Nigeria on Wednesday slumped at the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) verification exercise centre in Abuja.
SaharaReporters gathered that the workers slumped due to overcrowding at the centre and were rushed to a nearby hospital by some of their colleagues.
A video obtained by SaharaReporters on Thursday shows the rowdy exercise with no regulations at the Abuja venue where about 17,000 workers from across Nigeria were directed to report for the programme.
This is in compliance with the directive given by the Nigerian Government which mandated all civil servants and workers of the country’s core ministries whose details were yet to be captured by IPPIS to partake in the ongoing registration exercise at a single centre in Abuja.
The exercise was slated for Monday, October 16 to Friday, October 27, 2023, at the Public Service Institute of Nigeria (PSIN), Kubwa Expressway, Abuja for the thousands of workers whose salaries had been withheld by the government.
“The verification exercise is becoming worse day by day,” one of the workers told SaharaReporters.
“Two people slumped on Wednesday amid the chaos going on here. We had to rush them (to the hospital) for survival. Help us to caution the head of service (Dr. Mrs Folasade Yemi-Esan).”
On Tuesday, SaharaReporters reported how no fewer than 20 civil servants going to Abuja from Maiduguri, Borno State for the exercise were involved in an accident in Gombe.
“At least one of our colleagues has been killed while on their way from Maiduguri to Abuja for the mandatory IPPIS registration exercise. The accident occurred in Gombe. This is really sad but I will keep you posted as we get more details,” one of the affected civil servants had told SaharaReporters.
Due to this, the workers protested against the poor and tiring process of getting captured by the IPPIS at the verification centre in Abuja on Tuesday and were tear-gassed by the police.
“There is an ongoing protest now in Abuja by federal civil servants who have not been paid since May and were 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 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 added.
