Ministry workers flee as lepers protest in Delta

Workers in Delta State Ministry of Women Affairs and Community Development took to their heels yesterday, when lepers marked this year’s World Leprosy Day by staging protest, demanding increase in their monthly stipends, feeding and payment of arrears.

 They barricaded the new Anwai Road, where the ministry is located, and vowed to remain there until their demands are met as officials of the ministry took to their heels for fear of being brutalised.
The lepers, on the platform of Persons Affected with Leprosy, PALs, who came from their settlement at Eku in Ethiope East local Government Area of the state, accused the ministry officials of tampering with their allowances. Some of the placards carried by the protesters read:

“We are dying of hunger, our children are starving,” “In 2017 you must pay us N15,000 or we return to the road,” “Is there any market for the poor among others?” 

A leper Chairman of the Eku settlement, Mr. Lucky Egbo, and Secretary, Paul Oke, in a letter of reminder to the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Community Development, Mrs. Omatsola Williams, insisted that the six months arrears owed them should be paid. While also demanding increase in their monthly allowance from N3,500 to N15,000, they said they should be fed twice a day instead of once.

Contacted, the commissioner, Mrs Williams, said the lepers’ demands are being looked into, adding that they were not abandoned by the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s administration. She, however, said what was being owed the lepers under the present administration was this January stipend, saying that the five months being owed by the past administration was being looked into.

Vanguard