Skip to main content

Rivers Poly Workers Beg Wike To Reverse Sacking

June 18, 2015

The State Government had on Monday announced the cancellation of the polytechnic workers appointment. Those affected are academic and non-academic staff, who were recently employed by the Rotimi Amaechi administration.

Image

The four hundred thirty-five employees of the Rivers State Polytechnic, Bori, sacked by the state government have urged well-meaning people of the state to prevail on the government to reverse the decision and recall them to work.

The State Government had on Monday announced the cancellation of the polytechnic workers appointment. Those affected are academic and non-academic staff, who were recently employed by the Rotimi Amaechi administration.

Speaking on behalf of their colleagues, Jekey Lekue, Grace Ikue and Basil Ujobolo urged the State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, not to renege on his promise during his inauguration to give hope to the people.

Speaking with newsmen in Port Harcourt on Thursday, some of the disengaged workers lamented that they had been searching for job for the past five years before they were eventually employed at the state polytechnic.

They also stated that some of them had to resign from their former place of work after they received their appointment letters from the authorities of the State Polytechnic, Bori, Khana Local Government Area.

Explaining that they went through a painstaking process before they were employed, the sacked workers recalled that they had supervised the last examination in the school before the announcement that their employment had been cancelled.

“We are calling on well meaning Rivers people to do justice to this issue. We beg Rivers people to step in. Governor Nyesom Wike gave the state hope on May 29, 2015. We have already been captured in the database of the state. Our governor should not do this to us,” they further appealed.

In another development, the State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, has disbanded the Rivers State Road Traffic Management Agency known as TIMARiV.

Reacting to the sacking of the 435 RIVPOLY workers, the Special Adviser on Media to the State Governor, Sir Opunabo Inko-Tariah, stated their appointment was marred by irregularities.

Inko-Tariah said, “The appointment of the staff were marred with irregularities. Such an appointment had to be terminated to look into the whole issue holistically.

“The sacking was premised on irregularities. So many procedural obligations were breached and as a result, the exercise was deprived of due process.”

Speaking on the Rector of the polytechnic, Dr Obiando Elechi Amadi, who was sent on a compulsory leave, Inko-Tariah pointed out that it was as a result of a case of official misconduct on the rector’s part.

On the disbandment of the state traffic management agency, the governor’s aide specifically said that some of the officials of TIMARIV were making illegal seizure of vehicles in order to extort money from innocent citizens.

According to him, “Many of those guys were making illegal and embarrassing seizure of vehicles on the roads and this is becoming an eyesore. Let us leave politics aside; it is a known fact all over the state that TIMARIV had constituted itself into a public nuisance.

“The action of its staff had, in most cases, brought River State into disrepute. What they do in most cases is illegal. They are not supposed to struggle for the steering with the driver of a vehicle, but this is what they often do.

“The state government can no longer cope with the excesses of this TIMARIV staff. It was on that premises that the governor decided that it should be disbanded.

“Governor Nyesom Wike also instructed that all seized vehicles should be released with immediate effect. He further instructed that nobody should pay a kobo to TIMARIV.

“If anybody should be refused or deprived of the retrieval of his/her vehicle, such a person should report to the nearest police station and the TIMARIV staff in question will be dealt with,” Inko-Tariah added.