…Delta State has not Employed for the past 8 years and has over 20,000 Vacuum – Comrade Ighesiri
By Michael Odiah
The Delta State Commissioner for Information, Mr Patrick Ukah has said that the last employment exercise by the immediate past administration of Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan was only suspended and has been consistently looked into and is still in progress, stressing that nobody was sacked by Governor Okowa’s administration.
Ukah made these statements Wednesday, January 24, 2018 at his office in Asaba while responding to questions by Journalists, adding that the present state government has put in a lot to spot out ghost workers and till date, over 400 persons are yet to appear for screening.
Meanwhile, the suspended Civil Servants who were employed by Uduaghan’s administration as led by Comrade Obukohwo Ighesiri while briefing the press earlier in Asaba, revealed that, Delta State has not employed in the past 8 years and yet has over 20,000 vacuum culminating from over aged persons, ghost workers, retirees cum deceased persons in the civil service, which was revealed to them by the HeckerBella Screening Company.
Ighesiri accused the State Assembly for not responding to their plight despite series of petitions submitted to it. “The Delta State House of Assembly that is supposed to be the mouth piece of the oppressed and check the excesses of the executive arm, has failed us as our petitions on employment issue that affected a heterogeneous citizenry of the state is yet to see the light of day at the hallow chambers.”
Comrade Ighesiri further said that Governor Okowa who once described their suspension order as painful and agonizing, is not intimidating to them as he has turned a deaf ear to their cry cum suffering over the years, praying that God should touch Governor Okowa’s heart to implement his own words of August 2016 “I took oath of office to do what is right that is due cause, those that got the job legitimately would be absolved back into the system”.
He further called on the Delta State chapter of ASCON and NLC to live up to its expectations and continue in the likes of Late Comrade David Ofoeyeno, the immediate past chairman of NLC in the State who joined in their struggles to see to their reinstatement into the service before his painful demise, harping that they have had enough patience and is willing to fight back through the instrumentality of their PVC to vote out a government that has turned deaf ears to the cry of its citizenry.
Narrating her ordeal, Mrs Ndidi, a native of Idumuje-ugboko said that she did quit her former job at Asaba Housing Estate just to accept the Civil Service job to serve her state only for her to be suspended after one month without pay.
She described the disappointing moment as a very huge blow in her life as she was at peak of delivery of her now 3year old daughter, adding that she had to struggle immensely to survive, just to keep her hopes alive and that of her daughter, who believes that one day her mother will be reinstated and that she might be able to go to school, as she is due but cannot be accessed on a platter of charcoal.
