Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja
Workers of Kogi State have again been thrown into mourning as one Fatimah Noah, a staff of Magistrate Court 11was said to have slumped and died allegedly over non-payment of her salaries.
Kogi State government is currently owing judiciary workers who just suspended their five-month-old strike, nine months salaries.
It was gathered that Mrs Noah, a widow, popularly known as Mama Danlandi, slumped and died at 8.pm on Thursday in her residence in Lokoja, over a yet-to-be-established illness.
An account said she resumed work last Monday with her colleagues after JUSUN called off its 5-month-old strike, after National Judicial Council (NJC) resolved the trade dispute between the judiciary and Kogi State government; she had been coming to the office without any medical complaint.
According to one of her colleagues, late Mama Danladi was in the office last Thursday; she did not betray any emotion of a sickness or any form of discomfort, until she closed and left for home.
A family source said since her husband died years ago, the burden of taking care of her family had heavily weighed her down, but her plight became compounded when her salary was not paid close to a year.
“Mama Danladi was not paid any salary for the past one year; she was a widow with children in tertiary institutions; she was said to be trying to borrow the sum of N20,000 three days ago to address some pressing needs of one of her sons in school without success,” a source said.
While speaking to journalists, some of her colleagues extolled her virtues, lamenting that they had lost a rare gem whose dedication to work endeared her to the highly and lowly.
Our correspondent gathered that the remains of late Mama Danladi who was born on November 18, 1973, were taken to Idah, her country home on Friday, and buried according to Islamic rites.