From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Sometime in 2011, over 4,000 members of the Abia State workforce, whom the then government of Theodore A. Orji labelled “non-indigenes”, were sacked.
Their leader, Mrs. Fidelia Ihejirika, said: “I am the leader of the sacked workers of Abia State. More than 4,000 of us were sacked. We were working in Abia State until 2011. We have local government workers, nurses, teachers and people working in the ministries.
“That year, we heard the rumour that the Abia State government then wanted to disengage us. Personally, I thought it was a joke, until a day came within that period when we were disengaged and letters were given to us to go to our respective states of origin.
“Some of us went to our states and we were asked to go back to were we were working. And they were right. Some of us had put in 34 years of service in Abia and were on the verge of retiring. So, will a state where we never worked all our lives pay our retirement benefits and pensions? It was absurd.”
According to their leader, the offence of the disengaged workers, who have now formed a union, Association of Disengaged Workers of Abia State (ADWAS), was basically that they were not from Abia.
“Our only crime was that we are not from Abia State. Some of us are from Enugu, Imo, Anambra and Ebonyi states. To tell you how callous they were with that decision, our colleagues who were from states not within the South East were not affect by the government order. In other words, it was targeted at the Igbo who we re not from Abia,” she explained.
Ihejirika said their problem started with the administration of T.A. Orji, which sacked over 4,000 of them without any form of compensation, not even that month’s salary.
The lady said when Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu was elected governor, they were hopeful he would at least pay them their entitlements, since it may not be practical to reabsorb them, but all hopes were lost as nothing happened.
“From 2011 up till now, we have not been paid anything. When Okezie Ikpeazu came up as governor, we thought he could have our entitlements paid, but he did not.
“At a point, we started pleading with his administration, thinking we would be recalled, but it was all in vain. Then, my question is this, where is our money? Who is holding it? This is one question nobody in the state was prepared to answer.
“Some of our colleagues are doing all sorts of dehumanizing jobs to make ends meet. Some hawk goods along streets. These are university graduates who spent years in serving Abia State. Some are now in their villages while many don’t have money for medication. To cap it all, over 89 of our colleagues have died”, Ihejirika cried out.
Touched by the debilitating condition of the sacked workers, a human rights group came to their aid, at least to assist them in seeking redress in court.
Mrs Ihejirika threw more light on this, saying: “A human rights group got wind of our predicament and brought us together; they were the people that made us to come together as a group so that we can fight as a body. They even went to court on our behalf and not even the decision of the Industrial Court, which was in our favour, could sway the state government to pay us.”
Apart from the decision of the Owerri Industrial Court on the matter in favour of the disengaged workers, Port Harcourt division of the same court equally ruled in favour of one of the disengaged workers.
One of the disengaged workers, Ann, had taken the Abia Government to the court and averred that she was offered an appointment as an employee of the Abia State public service with the secondary education management board on June 21, 1995 and rose to a chief education officer on salary grade level 14/2 in 2011.
She went further to state that on August 25, 2011, the head of service of Abia State announced the transfer of all non-indigenes working in the state public service back to their states of origin. With this, her appointment was terminated without any legal justification on September 30, 2011.
She equally told the court presided by Justice Zaynab Bashir that the circular which led to her disengagement was discriminatory, and unconstitutional and in effect violated her rights to live and work anywhere in Nigeria, and urged the court to grant the reliefs she sought.
The judge, in her ruling, declared the purported disengagement of the claimant from the Abia State Civil Service by the governor of Abia State, its head of service, State Universal Basic Education Board and its attorney general as unconstitutional, null and void.
The court further held that the purported transfer or disengagement of services of the claimant from the Abia State Civil Service is discriminatory and contrary to international best practice and the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) as amended and awarded her the sum of N2m as general damages and N1m cost of action.
The court said it was wrong for Abia State government to have disengaged the applicant from the Abia State Civil Service in the manner they did by reason of not being an indigene of the State and ordered for her immediate reinstatement with payment of arrears of her salaries and allowances from the date of the unlawful termination/disengagement of her employment in September 2011 till date.
Despite the courts’ pronouncements, the fate of the workers remained the same. Piqued by the sufferings of the disengaged workers, the apex Igbo body, Ohaneze Ndigbo, sometime ago, waded into the matter.
Then President of Ohaneze in Abia, Justice Ajuzieogu, assured the disengaged workers of the apex Igbo group’s readiness to intervene, assuring they would get justice.
The group’s move was sequel to a petition the enraged workers wrote to the national body of Ohaneze on the issue, yet little or nothing came out of such intervention as Abia State Government called off the bluff of Ohaneze and remained adamant.
For the disengaged workers, all hope is not lost, not when a new sheriff is in town. They believe that since Dr. Alex Otti is now the governor of the state and has promised to right the wrongs of the previous administrations, and since their dismissal was one of such wrongs, he will look their way.
Ihejirika is optimistic, saying: “Despite what has happened to us over the years, we are not losing hope, not when Dr. Alex Otti is now the governor. He has been with us, he knows our problem and I believe it is just a matter of time for him to do the right thing.
“The present governor is a man of his words. He has promised to right the wrongs of the previous administrations in the state and ours is one of the wrongs. I strongly believe he is going to right”.
Ihejirika, on behalf of other members of ADWAS, sent a Save Our Soul (SoS) message to Otti to help them.
