14th July, 2015
Yusuf Muhammed
Workers with Infinity Media, a communication outfit owned by Christ Embassy Church, will on Thursday take to the streets of Lagos State, southwest Nigeria, to protest the non payment of their salaries.
The workers are accusing some top pastors of the church of playing politics with their salaries, while blaming Pastor Ifeoma Chiemeka for refusing to approve the payment of their arrears after a directive to that effect was issued by the Head Pastor and President of Believers Loveworld, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome.
According to the aggrieved workers, in December 2014, some of the workers were retrenched and paid off while a few that remained were overworked and also denied their salaries.
This prompted them to petition the Lagos State Mediation Centre in April 2015 for intervention.
On 22 April, 2015 the church, according to the workers, sent Pastor Adegoke Adebayo and Pastor Ike Nnoli to represent it at the Mediation Centre and the parties agreed to meet again on 22 May, 2015 after the workers might have been paid.
But the pastors refused to honour the agreement and also failed to show up at the adjourned date.
Angry with the nonchalant attitude of the church management, the workers resolved to go on a peaceful protest on Thursday this week to draw the attention of Oyakhilome and Nigerians to their plight.