Abia Govt Reverses Command Promotions Of Civil Servants, PDP Faults Action
The Abia State Government under Dr Alex Otti, has reversed all Command Promotions made in the Abia State Public Service in the past eight years.
In a Release signed by the Head of Service Dr Ngozi Obioma, the government, cancelled and reversed all Command Promotions granted in the past eight (8) years before the inception of the present administration, to both individual Public Servants and the entire workforce (in April 2023, directing all affected staff to reverse to their former rank and salary grade level before the Command Promotions under reference.
In a Statement, the People’s Democratic Party(PDP), in Abia State, described the action as obnoxious,punitive and anti-people.
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*REVERSAL OF ALL COMMAND PROMOTIONS IN ABIA CIVIL SERVICE IS PUNITIVE, OBNOXIOUS, AND ANTI-PEOPLE.*
The attention of the Abia PDP has been drawn yet again to one of the many punitive and obnoxious directives by the Abia governor, Alex Otti, aimed at destroying the Abia State civil and public service. This time, Alex Otti has directed, forthwith, the reversal of all command promotions made in the Abia State public service in the past eight years prior to April 2023.
This directive is clearly anti-people and against the Abia State public and civil service rules, and Governor Alex Otti has cultivated the penchant for not following due process in dealing with the Abia Civil Service. A few days after he assumed office as the governor of Abia State, Alex Otti summarily suspended all the permanent secretaries in the civil service without due process and later sacked all of them without recourse to the provisions of the Abia Civil Service rules.
A few weeks into his governorship, Alex Otti sacked all civil servants who had served as directors for upwards of eight years, even when they were not due for retirement, sacked more than 15,000 Abia civil servants without following due process and civil service rules, and subjected the remaining ones to endless verifications, with many owed salaries in the past 13 months that he has been governor. The issue of salary payment has become an existential threat to Abia workers, even in the face of increased earnings by the state from the Federation Allocation Account Committee, FAAC.
Presently, two labour unions—the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU branch of the Abia State University, and the organised labour, comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress, TUC, both of the Abia State branch—are spoiling for war with Alex Otti on account of unpaid salaries in his 13-month tenure and his refusal to pay the N35,000 wage award approved by the Federal government. But Alex Otti is always quick to implement other policies from the federal government, like the one that has to do with the certification of civil servants. The selective implementation of policies by this administration is not only barbaric but also unproductive, as it has the potential to affect the morale of workers adversely.
Reversing the command promotions made by the previous government, which followed civil rules, is a pathetic anathema that speaks to the continuous destruction of Abia governance structures by Alex Otti, and this reflects his undying hatred for the PDP, especially the immediate past government. Incidentally, he has failed to learn, and this is made manifest in the embarrassing mistakes he has made in government, which he has surreptitiously tried to cover up by bringing back the sacked civil servants as consultants.
Abia PDP considers it insensitive that Alex Otti will reverse the promotions and order the civil servants to return to the prior levels, including the reversal of their salary grades, in the face of excruciating hardship, soaring inflation, an economic downturn, and rising food prices. Couldn’t the government have devised another method of implementing this policy going forward than reversing a promotion and a salary that workers have built family structures in the past eight years?
The Abia PDP calls on governor Alex Otti to have a humane face in dealing with personnel issues, and for the umpteenth time, let Alex Otti understand that Abia civil servants are not members of the PDP, and every attempt he makes to take revenge on Abia PDP using Abia civil servants will backfire and fail on his face.
We call on Abia civil servants to continue to engage peacefully and meaningfully with the Alex Otti government for the reversal of this punitive and anti-people policy and others that are destroying the fabric of the Abia civil service. And Alex Otti should understand that government is a continuum that survives different operators. He should not destroy the good things he inherited on the altar of hate.
*PDP: Power to the People!*
Signed
*Hon. Elder Abraham Amah*
*Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary*
