UNIBEN Staff Commits Suicide Over Financial Difficulties As Unpaid Salaries Lingers

A Data entry staff of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) has reportedly committed suicide over his inability to cope financially.

 

Prince Carter Oshodin was said to have taken his own life on Friday, September 9, in Umelu Community in Upper Sakponba area of Benin City.

 

Though the Non-Academic Staff Union, which the deceased belonged to, called off its strike recently, the members are yet to be paid their salaries.

 

Oshodin, in a Facebook post in 2017, had counselled those who work in the public sector to persevere because things could get better.

 

He wrote: “Another thing you have to know when working with the government because salary is peanut, you lose hope. Please dont. I know a woman that started work with N125 In 1986 now she is earning over N300, 000 In 2017. That is why you have to be with what you are doing because little drop of water make a mighty ocean.”

 

 

Reacting to the incident, a Professor in the University who spoke on condition of anonymity, told punch said it is disheartening that those who called off their strike have still not been paid by the government.

 

“Yes he is our staff that killed himself due lack of money. Even some months ago, he was quoted to have been advising people on coping strategies and yet he took his life which has put his family in a bigger problem,” the professor said, per Sun News.

 

“We have been paid no dime since we went on strike. This is the 10th of September, the non academic staff that have since resumed have not been paid anything.”

 

A colleague of the late Oshodin, who simply identified himself as Edward, said the deceased on his Facebook page lamented that he could not meet his financial obligations and was finding it increasingly difficult to pay his two daughters’ school fees.

 

“He committed suicide on Friday and according to a post on his Facebook, he said he was facing financial difficulties and could not pay the school fees of his two young daughters. It is a pathetic situation,” he said.