By Achile Danjuma
The Anambra State Government has followed through on its threat to penalize civil servants who defied its directive to work on Mondays, implementing pro-rata salary deductions for February. This move is a key part of the government’s strategy to dismantle the Monday sit-at-home order previously enforced by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
In a circular announcing the end of the sit-at-home directive, the state government declared that, effective February 2026, salaries would be calculated and paid on a pro-rata basis, meaning workers would only be compensated for the days they physically reported for duty.
However, the impact of the new policy became painfully clear for many employees as they received their February pay alerts, which in some cases featured drastic cuts.
Speaking to journalists at the Jerome Udoji Secretariat in Awka on Tuesday, several workers described the deductions as excessively harsh and poorly calculated. They alleged that the amount deducted did not align with the number of Mondays they had missed.
A civil servant from the Ministry of Information, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, expressed shock at his salary. “Out of my monthly salary of over N80,000, I received just N3,500,” he lamented. He added that a female colleague in his ministry had over N10,000 deducted from her pay. “The cuts don’t make sense. Someone who missed just one or two Mondays got the same heavy deduction as someone who missed all. There must have been an error in the computation,” he said.
Another affected worker shared a similar experience, stating, “I was surprised to see such a huge deduction. Over N80,000 was taken from my salary, and I only missed work for two Mondays. That amount is far more than what two days’ pay should be.”
When approached for comment, the state Commissioner for Information, Dr. Law Mefor, confirmed the deductions were a direct consequence of the failure to report to work on Mondays. He clarified that the government’s directive required employees not just to be present, but to formally register their attendance.
“The salary cut is a clear consequence for those who failed to come to work on Mondays,” Dr. Mefor stated. “The instruction was clear: you must clock in when you arrive and clock out at the end of the day. This creates a verifiable record of your presence. If you came to work but failed to clock in and out, there is no evidence to prove you were here. For all intents and purposes, you were absent.”