Abia Civil Servant Commits Suicide over Unpaid Salary

Abia Civil Servant Commits Suicide over Unpaid Salary

As the effects of unpaid salaries bite harder, a civil servant in Abia State tragically ended his life at the weekend when he could no longer cope with the pressure of life.

Dee Nwankwo, 52, a staff of the Ministry of Lands and Survey, was said to have hanged himself in his sitting room while his wife and three children left the house for church service.

His dangling body from the ceiling was discovered by his family members when they came back from church service in the afternoon.

According to an eye witness, the alarm raised by the wife of the deceased attracted neighbours who expressed shock at the ugly development as some saying that the deceased had taken an extreme decision of taking his own life.

He said the father of three had left a suicide note, saying he could no longer bear the pangs of unpaid salaries and the attendant shame of not being able to live up to his responsibilities as husband and father.

The deceased, like other civil servants, was owed two months’ salary arrears by the state government. His suicide note was given to the police while the body of the deceased was deposited in the morgue.

The late civil servant was said to have been agonising over the difficulties he had been facing to fend for his family, including his inability to buy the wrapper his wife requested for in celebration of the Mother’s Sunday.

A neighbour of the deceased told journalists that he had been assisting him with food stuff each time he came to ask for help, adding that when he visited last Saturday, the rice in his house had been exhausted hence he could not assist him as usual.

“Since I didn’t have food in the house, it’s possible he (deceased) had begged some other people to assist him with food and they turned him down, so the shame and frustration weighed down heavily on him,” he said.

When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Onyeke Udeviotu Ezekiel, said he was yet to get the full details of the incident from the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Ehimiri the jurisdiction where the sad incident took place.