Date Published: 11/07/11

Rescind your decision to backload non indigenes, Imo Government begs

Following the decision of the Abia state government to backload all non indigenes in her Civil Service and Local Councils to their states of origin, the Imo state has now resorted to pleading with her Abia counterpart to have a change of heart on the policy.

    Addressing news men in Owerri, the Imo state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Dr. Obinna Duruji said ,”We are making a u- turn form condemnation to pleading with Umuahia to re-think the decision in order for Gov. Theodore Orji  to see reason not to embarrass Ndigbo.”

    He advised the Abia state government to devise means of solving her problems without endangering the cohesion of Ndigbo.

    Duruji also posited that the implementation of the N18,000 minimum wage was not enough reason for Gov. Orji to disorganize the South East Zone, which he said, has now learnt to speak with one voice on issues of common interest.

   It would be recalled that the policy has degenerated to a verbal war between the two sister states. The Imo government has continued to condemn it while the Abia state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Chief Don Ubani insists that the affected civil servants were not sacked , but transferred to their various states of origin.

   The Legislative Houses of the two states have also been caught up in the crossfire. The Imo state House of Assembly passed a resolution condemning the policy and opted to challenge it up to the Supreme Court if it was not stopped. This was after the Abia Assembly had commended Gov.Orji, insisting that he did no wrong by transferring non natives back to their state of origin ,even when other states did so in the past.

    In Abia state, the policy have also attracted  criticisms from some eminent personalities .The candidate of the Labour Party in the April 26 gubernatorial election  in the state, Chief  Stanley Ohajuruka, has called on the Abia state to rescind its policy of sending non indigenes back to their states, and submitted that it is not in the interest of the Igbo people.

    A founding father of the state and Gov. Orji’s kinsman, Prince Benjamin Apugo, had last week, described the policy as unpopular and ill advised and called on Gov. Orji to halt the exercise  as it had created bad blood by pitching Abia against other states In the country.

    Apugo’s stand brought him on collision course with the Abia government as its spokesman, Ubani, dismissed him as ‘someone suffering from fundamental ignorance, an anti-Abia,who is not qualified to speak on issues affecting the state.’

    Pointblanknews.com checks revealed that the affected non indigenes have already been delisted from the nominal roll of ministries, local councils and government parastatals in Abia state, with effect from October 1st,2011. The exercise is still going on as the time of writing this report with the teachers  in the primary and post primary schools being the worst hit as it recorded the highest population of non indigenes in the Abia state civil service. Pointblanknews.com also learnt that the back loaded civil servants have had difficulties being accepted by their various states of origin, even as they have continued to protest, pleading with the authorities to show sympathy.

For now, the Abia state government, in a recent statement signed by its spokesman, Ubani, insists that there is no going back on the policy.