Finally, Delta Governor Breaks Silence On Sacked 3000 Civil Servants, Says There Was Never Employment In 2015

By Kenneth Orusi, The Nigerian Voice, Asaba
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Delta state governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, has finally broken his silence on the controversial 3000 sacked civil servants suspended by his administration on ground of alleged fraudulent recruitment process by his predecessor, Dr. Emmanuel Ewata Uduaghan’s administration.

For years, these suspended workers protested, held several meetings with top government functionaries and among themselves with assurance that the state government was reviewing their employment process and would be recalled back as soon as government was done with their verification after working for three months.

Addressing journalists recently, the mouthpiece of the state government, Mr. Charles Ehiedu Aniagwu, at the conference hall of the ministry of Information, said in 2015, there were no workers that were suspended, insisting that it was the process of their recruitments that was aborted.

Hear him: “If somebody is pregnant and is seven months pregnant even if the tommy has protruded so much but she has not given birth, you can only talk about abortion. You cannot say the baby was killed because the baby has not been delivered, it doesn’t have a name. It was the process that we suspended”, explaining that that was why they have not come into the payroll.

He noted that “If they have become staff and workers, that time they would have come into the payroll and you know the principles that you will follow to now sack somebody. You don’t suspend workers in that respect, if you have become a worker, it is either you are downsizing or you sack”.

He noted that the 450 even accepted by the government have grave financial implication on the government on monthly basis as it would not be easy to pay their salaries, “and the government also made it very clear that we are going to go through the process of screening and then batch by batch because you cannot just upload everybody at the same time”, stressing that the government came with the new number after the first screening.

There were speculations that the suspended civil servants whose leaders were purportedly left out of the 450 absorbed into the state civil service, was purportedly done by government to punish them for leading protest against the government.

“And the insinuation that leaders were left out, that is not true. And in any case, we don’t even know who is leading who. We just believed that there were persons who were just agitating on the suspension of the processes that would have led to their employment in 2015. But as to who is their leader or who is not their leader. Leader as what? He asked.

He maintained further that the people were not employed collectively but on individual basis.

It would be recalled that the suspended civil servants received employment letters and went through biometrics before their jobs were terminated.