OPINION:UNIZIK’s Forgotten Staff: Cheers for Their Own Chains
While the halls of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) echoed with birthday songs and applause in honour of Acting Vice Chancellor Prof. Carol Arinze-Umobi, a far grimmer reality was unfolding in the shadows. Here lie forgotten workers , some labouring for over six years without a single salary , who chose not to protest or demand what is rightfully theirs. Instead, they praised the very leadership that has long failed them.
This is not loyalty. It is survival through sycophancy.
For years, these unpaid staff have kept the wheels turning at UNIZIK, serving in critical roles, yet the institution treats them as invisible,unpaid, unrecognized, and disregarded. Even worse, recent revelations of secret recruitments expose a cynical system that quietly welcomes new employees while these long-suffering workers remain trapped in an endless limbo of neglect.
How does one explain an institution that forces staff to pay just to serve, then denies them their wages for years? How does it justify welcoming fresh faces on payrolls while those who have devoted half a decade or more go unpaid? This is not just mismanagement it is exploitation cloaked in bureaucratic apathy.
And yet, instead of anger or protest, these workers resort to praise a desperate act of hoping goodwill will finally earn them dignity. But praise alone does not pay bills, does not feed families, does not erase the trauma of poverty or the heartbreak of watching colleagues die from neglect.
This spectacle of balloon-filled celebrations amid unpaid laborers is the epitome of institutional hypocrisy. What rational logic is there in celebrating a Vice Chancellor while refusing to pay those who keep the university alive? What message does it send when those who have sacrificed everything to serve become sycophants at a feast they cannot afford?
The truth is uncomfortable but unavoidable, this is a system complicit in its own cruelty. We condemn politicians for corruption and injustice, yet here within our own institutions, we tolerate and perpetuate the very same abuses. How can we demand accountability elsewhere when we refuse to uphold basic fairness in our own backyard?
UNIZIK must act swiftly and decisively. The plight of these workers is not just a personnel issue; it is a moral indictment of leadership that has allowed a slave camp of staff to exist for years. To delay further is to betray the university’s founding principles of justice and human dignity.
The workers’ silent cry behind the birthday fanfare is a challenge for us all: will we continue to applaud injustice, or will we rise to demand the respect and recompense these forgotten heroes deserve?
