The Chairman of Delta State branch of Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), Comrade Bolum Martin Nwachukwu has praised the Delta State workforce and civil servants for their courage, sacrifice and votes support to the Governor-Elect Sheriff Oborevwori.
In this exclusive interview, Comrade Nwachukwu who is also the South-South chairman of both unions says civil servants are essential to keeping the State running and urges the Governor-Elect to entrust and work closely with labour unions in the State to enacting his agenda.
He says that the State employees are the brightest with great personal courage and have remained committed to four principles: having integrity in their work; operating with transparency and accountability; putting the interest of the Deltans above their own; and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. He spoke to Chidi-Peters Okorie:
Excerpts:
Mr Chairman Sir, let us look at the election in Delta State particularly the just concluded Governorship election. What’s your opinion?
Well, we thank God that it was a success. God intervened and we had a good election. I must acknowledge the fact that it was a tough one, being that there is a new way on political elections and campaigns. The advent of the Obi-dients, knowing that almost every young person is Obi-dient, it was a big challenge. But in Delta State we had a very good working relationship with PDP. The Government of Senator Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa was a people-oriented government, it was workers-friendly, so we had no option than to make sure that what we know we sustain than what we don’t know. That was just the principle. Because I will take you back through history, before Okowa came, we met with him, the organized Labour and we agreed on things he would do for workers. One of them was payment of salaries no matter the situation. Anything that happens at the National he must adopt here including workers welfare among others. And he kept to them. And one of the agreement was that he must give workers listening ears which he did.
So, having done well, we have no reason not to trust him. When Sheriff was presented, we have no reason not to trust him either because he did well in the House of Assembly; he was with us, he has worked with us as the Speaker of the House and the first Speaker that had stayed for six years without us locking the gates of House of Assembly. That is a very big mark. As a Leader in the House of Assembly, Oborevwori was able to take care of the workers; the issue of wardrobe allowance that has been a nagging issue that makes the workers in the House of Assembly always fighting with the members and Speakers he solved it when he came. And it was in his time that we discovered that workers could go on training. He trained and retrained workers.
Manpower development is very important to the workers which he believed in. they even went on training abroad which was unheard of. It was only members that used to for training abroad. But in his time workers went for training abroad which is great. So, he’s a man who listens and we saw in him as somebody who would follow the footsteps of Dr Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa as it concerns workers welfare. And also he will do more because he’s somebody you can reach easily. That’s what gave rise to why workers of Delta State decided to stand behind him and thank God we succeeded.
We have delivered and we’re happy that he’s been returned elected.
So, now where do we go from here? That is the next level. He has assured us that he will give us listening ears; we had meetings with him before the election; before we declared Obi-diently Sheriffied, it took time but he assured us that he was going to give us listening ears; he assured us he was going to do all that Governor Okowa had been doing including infrastructural development and do more things; he would pay our monies as at when due, clear arrears and handle the issue of pensions from wherever Okowa stopped, because Okowa is almost done with it. He’s going to continue with it, he has given us assurance that he’s going to do that.
He has assured us that the issue of Promotion Arrears would be taken care of even though the Governor is taking care already, more would come tomorrow and he’s going to take care of it; he has assured us so many things that he’s going to do and we believe him. Because when somebody is talking to you and you look at his eyes whether he’s lying because he’s somebody who knows the road. They say follow who know road. He knows the road. All that the Governor has done he gave backing from the House. When they need to pass the laws that concerns workers he passed them. So, we know him and believe that we can trust him.
As soon as he hits the ground running, we expect him to start implementing, no wasting time because he’s not new to the system. If we had gotten a new person, the person would have to learn the system maybe try to probe and maybe waste one or two years owing salaries. But this man have no reason to do any of that because he was part of this outgoing government. So, it’s continuity. There’s gain in continuity and the workers of Delta State believe that continuity will help us. So, we believe so much in him.
You talked about workers not locking the gates of House of Assembly but we have seen several protests by people who said they’re pensioners who are owed pensions by the state government. We have seen protests in front of House of Assembly and of course we have seen protests in front of Government House of Delta State and up till now the people are still crying foul that they are not being paid pensions. And here you are talking again that the pensions are almost being taken care of by the government.
Now that the election is over I believe that those protests will come down because most of them were politically motivated. I have said it before and I’m saying it again. Because the government of Dr Arthur Ifeanyi Okowa paid serious attention to pensions. And as it stands today, no Civil Servant in Delta State, I mean state pensions who is between level 01 to 06, is owed pensions.
Government have paid their accrued rights to date. From level 07 and above we’re in 2020 already. The thing is going down and within the next few months if we continue with the releases that are coming it would have come to date with it. So, that is serious commitment. He has done a lot of interventions on the issues of pensions, not because people are crying. Like the man said, he does not like blowing his trumpet because these are sensitive issues; that he’s not doing them any good or any favours; that it is what he’s supposed to do that he was doing. He said it the other time that why he does not like talking about the things he has done is that that is what he’s supposed to do. That is his job.
If Sheriff Oborevwori would continue from where he stopped I know in no time the issue of pensions would be a thing of the past. And he has assured us that he’s going to do that. All he needs to do is just continue. In less than one year we would be out of the woods. That’s why I said it’s been taken care of. And Sheriff has assured us and he will even do better. That’s what we’re expecting. I don’t expect that those protests you were seeing will come. And when I said that for six years that Sheriff was in the House of Assembly there was no locking of gate I mean the workers of the House of Assembly which is his constituency, they never protested one day because he took care of them. He made sure their dues were given them. Of course anybody protesting anything would protest to House of Assembly that does not mean that the protest is against the House of Assembly. It is normal and natural.
Mr Chairman Sir! You talk with every assurance based on what the Governor-elect told you. Assuming now he gets there and disappoint Labour what happens?
We do not expect him to disappoint us. He knows what it means. We have worked with him while he was in the House of Assembly. This man we’re talking about have the experience of the Executive and the Legislature. And he is a Labour man. Somebody who started as a community Leader is a Labour man. He’s an Aluta person; he understands what it means. If he disappoints us we bring back our guns and everything; he understands the language but I don’t believe he will do that because we look at somebody and know who will do that kind of thing. We have every belief and assurances that he will not do that. I don’t think he will do that but if he does that of course, he knows what we can do.
Beyond Labour affairs, you are a Deltan and also a Stakeholder in your area. What area would like the Governor-elect to concentrate in his first 100 days in office?
I would want him to concentrate on human capital development. Deltans are at the lowest level of life when it comes to survival. It’s the whole country but he has to look more on that; how to make the people pick up a little because Delta has all it takes to lift the people’s economic wellbeing a little. Governor Okowa has set a lot of things with the YAGEP, STEP and all that. But he has to advance on them. ; put up programmes that would directly affect the lives of the people. We know there is cash crunch now; there are economic policies that are pulling people down; he should try to give workers proper welfare, because anything you do workers trickles straight to the people. He should try to look at how to reach the common people at least for the first one year. Put up policies and programmes that would directly affect the life of the people. Once he does that he’s home and dry.
Going back to the election once more, what was the magic that the labour leaders did for workers to look in the way of Sheriff?
There was no magic, all we did was tell them that this man has been part of our goodwill. There’s no worker that don’t know that Okowa did well for us. So, if Okowa can do all these when the man is in the House of Assembly and he never objected, at least he has the option of objecting. But he didn’t. And also we looked at how he has fared with workers in the Assembly complex. Mind you, the Union in the House of Assembly is part of us. PASSAN is a member of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and we meet and discuss. So, injury to one is injury to all. And PASAN assured us that the man is good and we saw the evidence; we didn’t see complains. There is one thing that people did not understand, of all the contestants this is the man that discussed with workers. Even the man from Labour Party, Pela, refused to come and speak with workers, because he believed that he will go through by riding behind Peter Obi. Omo-Agege did not seek audience with workers, so, we don’t know their minds. Gbagi did not meet with us. It was only Sheriff, our own employers PDP that discussed with us. You cannot go for somebody you don’t know what he’s coming to do. Sentiments apart, people would say Okowa this and that, they were busy fighting Okowa and telling lies that he has borrowed N850 billion which is not true. Because all that Governor Okowa did he consults with workers (Organized Labour). So, we know where he stands; we know the money they’re talking about; we know the things he’s doing and what he’s not doing. So, the person you know is better than the person you don’t know. There’s no other magic other than they came out clean and we embraced their cleanliness. He was the only one that came to the Secretariat to talk to workers. The day he came to talk to workers, they were asking for transport to go and vote. He made assurance immediately and the Head of Service made assurance that day that a little transport would be made available through their salaries. And for three days workers received alerts of N10,000 on their salaries. And people were rumouring that it was Governor Okowa who gave for vote buying. It was not so but the demand we made on Sheriff. It was the promise he made that he fulfilled. So, he is a ‘Promise Keeper’. And somebody who can keep his promise can be trusted. So he can be trusted for keeping his promises. He told us he was coming to see us and he came. He came down from his high horse to discuss with us one on one. One of the meetings he had with Labour leaders we tried to restrict questions he said no, he wants to hear. He came out and spoke to us like our own person. He was not doing it because of the elections but that is him that we have known before now.
So, I don’t believe he’s going to change. They say office change people but he has seen it all. He was Speaker for six years as the longest serving Speaker; he’s very close to being a Governor. There’s no much difference, the only difference is that he’s going to run a bigger society.
How do you see Deltans supporting him or against him?
Of course we have to support him. Now he’s the Governor, even when you did not vote for him you have to support him now for the good of the people. One thing with workers is that our political party is AGIP- Any Government in Power. So, now that he has emerged, we have supported him before he emerged, our support would now be total. Some few Civil Servants that were not sure before have no option than to come in because what we need is welfare, good Delta State, economic progress and housing. He has assured us he’s going to do something about our housing. We need transportation and he has assured us he’s going to do something about that. So, we just follow up on him. And thank God he has a listening ear and an open door. We won’t give him time to settle down, we’re following him immediately because there is no time.
He has already settled down. He should take leave and come back and as soon as he is sworn in, we’re with him all the way. But one thing we want to assure him is that we would give him all the necessary support and encouragement that he needs. He will not have issues with workers as long as we’re working together. Thank you!
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