Amidst the ongoing strike in the country’s universities, a data entry staff of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Prince Carter Oshodin, reportedly committed suicide on Saturday over his inability to cope financially.
He was reporrted to have taken his own life yesterday in Umelu community in Upper Sakponba area of Benin City.
Africa Daily News, New York gathered that although the non-academic staff union to which the deceased belonged called off its strike recently, the members were yet to be paid their salaries. The deceased, who described himself as Craze J. A on his Facebook page, had a message on his profile page which read: “Leave a good legacy behind before you depart.”
In a Facebook post in 2017, Oshodin had counselled those who work in the public sector to continue to endure as there were better days ahead.
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‘Another thing you have to know when working with the government because salary is peanut, you lose hope. Please don’t. I know a woman that started work with N125 in 1986; now she is earning over N300, 000 in 2017. That is why you have to be with what you are doing because little a drop of water makes a mighty ocean,’ he advised in the post.
Reacting to the incident, a professor in the university, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was disheartening that they had not been paid since the strike began and wondered why those who called off their strike had still not been paid by the government.
‘Yes, it was our staff that killed himself due to lack of money. Even some months ago, he was quoted to have been advising people on coping strategies, and yet he took his life and that has put his family in a bigger problem.
‘We have been paid no dime since we went on strike. This is the 10th of September; the non-academic staff that had since resumed had not been paid anything. Boko Haram! No to western education!’
A colleague of the late Oshodin who simply identified himself as Edward, said the deceased on his Facebook page lamented that he could not meet his financial and was finding it increasingly difficult to pay his two daughters’ school fees.
