Several workers of Ondo State Emergency Medical Services Agency (ODEMSA) took to the streets on the 9th July 2018 in Akure to protest against non-payment of 12 months salaries by the government. They besieged the Governor’s Office at Alagbaka, Akure, brandishing different placards and chanting songs of protest to register their grievance and government’s indifference to their plight.
Odemsa was established on March 24, 2010 to provide emergency medical pre-hospital (ambulance) and hospital (trauma care) and road services, along crash-prone highway corridors in the state to salvage the lives of accident victims.
The protest was led by Mr. Samuel Aderoju, with protesters who defied the drizzling rain and inclement sun that followed, chanting words such as “Pay our 12 months’ salary”, “Rescue us to rescue others on the roads”, “Hunger is killing us”, “Save our roads from death,” “Give our lives priority, rescue our families”, “Our job is a life-saving job.”
Aderoju said the workers had held several meetings and made appeals to the state government but to no avail, revealing that the last dialogue with government officials in March went fruitless like the previous ones.
“They told us that they would pay and later resorted to verification to know if there were ghost workers among us, yet no positive result. Also all efforts to meet Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu had hit the rock, so we have come here to embark on civic and peaceful protest to get the governor’s attention ourselves since we were prevented from seeing him.”
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