Taraba Football Club Players Protest Over Eight-Month Salary Arrears

From Tom Garba, Yola
Players of Taraba State Football Club have protests over the non-payment of their salaries for over eight months.
The players, who were out on the protest on Monday and Tuesday for at the Taraba Stadium in Jalingo, the state capital, have vowed to quit the club immediately if the state government paid them their pending salaries.
Speaking to newsmen on the protest, Spokepersons of the Club, Mr. Ajiga Isaac and Yusuf Usman Dadiga, said they decided to lock the the gate of the stadium in order to show their grievances over the inhuman attitude of the state government under the leadership of Governor Darius Ishaku for refusing to pay their salaries of over N17m.
They explained that since they came back from a premier league match eight months ago they have not been paid, pointing out that they have suffered a lot as many of them are family men but they have no money to neither eat three square meals nor send home to their families.
” Some of us are from Cameroon, some from other states here in Nigeria but since this government came on board we have been battling with them unlike the previous ones like, during the regime of Jolly Nyame, Danbaba.”,
A lady from the female team who pleaded anonymity explained that, she has not visited her parent for over two years now due to financial constraints, saying that it is difficult for many of them to even eat three square meal in a day.
She alleged that the Senior Special Assistant to Governor Darius on Media and Publicity Mr. Silvanus Giwa had on Monday went to the stadium and attempted to use policemen to arrest their leaders. In the ensuing melee some of the players were injured.
But Commissioner for Youth and Sports, Gambo Nbafor, attributed the delay in paying the players’ salaries to lack of fund as a result of the economic recession in the country.
In another development, security personnel at the Taraba Stadium who are under a private guard company called ” Aliyan Global Security” in Jalingo have called on the organization to pay them their three years salaries.
When contacted, the Managing Director of the Company Mr. Ajafor confirmed the non-payment of the salary. However, he assured that the salaries would be paid as soon as the firm received funds from the state government, which gave the company the contract to secure the stadium.