Sit-at-Home: Anambra Govt Slashes Salaries Of Workers, Some Get As Low As N3,500
The Anambra State Government has cut the February salaries of civil servants who failed to report for duty on Mondays, previously observed as sit-at-home days linked to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
It was gathered that the deductions followed the state’s earlier announcement that it would commence pro-rata salary payments as part of efforts to stamp out compliance with the Monday sit-at-home order.
The state government had announced that in February 2026, civil servants’ salaries would be paid according to pro-rata.
This is aimed towards ending the controversial sit-at-home protest.
It has now been established that, for many workers, the February salary alert brought not relief but shock, with some receiving what they described as “crippling” deductions.
At the Jerome Udoji State Secretariat in Awka, several workers who spoke with The PUNCH on Tuesday lamented that the deductions did not tally with the number of Mondays they allegedly missed.
One civil servant, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation, disclosed that a colleague in his ministry received just N10,000 as February salary after deductions.
Another staff member from the Ministry of Information said he was left with a paltry N3,500 from a monthly salary of over N80,000.
He was quoted as saying: “One of my colleagues said she received her salary with N10,000 deducted.
“The cuts are irregular, but I think there were errors in the computation because some people who missed work only once or twice had substantial deductions from their salaries.”
Another affected worker said, “I am surprised to see huge deductions when I received the alert for my February salary. Over N80,000 was deducted from my salary for missing work for two Mondays. I think it was miscalculated, as two Mondays were not supposed to be up to that amount.”
When contacted on Tuesday, the state Commissioner for Information, Law Mefor, defended the deductions, insisting they were punitive measures against absenteeism on Mondays.
He said, “The salary cut is a punishment for failure to come to work on Mondays. The instruction was that when you come to work on Mondays, you clock in, and at the close of work, you clock out. That is to show that you came to work.
“But, if you came to work on Mondays, but you didn’t clock in, and didn’t clock out, it means that you didn’t come to work because there is no evidence to show that you came to work.”
The development comes weeks after Governor Chukwuma Soludo described the continued observance of Monday sit-at-home by some traders and residents as “calculated economic sabotage.”
In January, Soludo accused unnamed actors of attempting to cripple major commercial hubs such as Onitsha and Nnewi through persistent compliance with the sit-at-home order, despite repeated government directives.
“It’s now calculated economic sabotage to bring down Onitsha, to bring down Nnewi, to bring down the economy of the state,” Soludo had declared.
“And I will tell you what, you can do that with any other person, but not with this governor standing here.”
The governor vowed that his administration would not tolerate actions aimed at weakening the state’s economy, adding, “We are determined on behalf of the Anambra people. We must take back our state. We are going to take back our state, whatever it costs. We are determined. It’s not yet 100%.”
He also insisted that security operations were ongoing across the state.
“We are still massively launching massive onslaughts on these criminal elements in our state. And Anambra is currently, without any doubt, one of the safest states in Nigeria,” he claimed.
“Those who claim to be the safest, even the enemy will agree that we’re one of the safest states in Nigeria.”
Soludo had further warned that markets and schools that refuse to open on Mondays risk being shut down for weeks.
“Because by Monday, those of them, any of them that fail to be open again, are going to be locked, maybe for two weeks. I’m not joking with this. We’re very clear about what must happen,” he said.
“The new Anambra that we’re building 24 by 7 must come to pass. God has willed it, and we humans must make it happen.”
