Abia to hold LG elections after studying S’Court ruling, to pay N45k wage award to workers

Abia State government says it would conduct elections into the 17 local government councils of the state after studying the contents and provisions of Thursday’s ruling of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Prince Okey Kanu , who announced this during an interaction with newsmen at the Government House , Umuahia, said it was one of the major decisions taken at this week’s state executive council meeting.

He stressed that at the right time , government will conduct elections to fill the various positions in the Local government Area administration of the state.

It will be recalled that last week Thursday, the Supreme court named Abia state as one of the 21 states with a total of 462 LGA’s that will not be eligible to receive funds from the Federation Allocation until new leaders are elected.

According to the ruling, appointment of caretaker committees to oversee the Local governments breaches section 7 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In the judgment of the apex court of Nigeria, Federal Allocation Account( FAAC) will no longer disburse funds to states that have appointed caretaker local government committee chairmen (Mayors) and councilors, including Abia, Rivers, Anambra, Katsina Zamfara Akwa-Ibom and others.

However, other decisions taken at the week’s State EXCO meeting in Abia included the resolve to pay N15,000 wage award for civil and public servants in the state for a period of three months, with effect from July, 2024.

The wage award is part of efforts of the state government to cushion the effects of the prevailing economic hardship in the country.

While emphasizing the determination of the Dr Alex Otti’s administration to enhance the welfare of Abia workers, the Information commissioner said that government would soon commence payment of annual leave allowance to civil servants who actually observe their annual leave, just as the Abia state chapter of the NLC and TUC have called-off their proposed strike action scheduled to begin on Monday.

“Because of the Governor’s commitment to workers’ welfare, he accepted to pay Abia workers a wage award of N45,000 in total, but at N15 thousand per month over the course of three months.

“The huge debts we inherited included accumulated leave allowances, but all that would be a thing of the past now given the governor’s commitment which he made even before the meeting with the Abia Chapter of the organized labour.

“Once any Abia worker is due for leave, he or she would be paid leave allowance. But the affected persons must truly proceed on leave”.

Sources say that in past, some staff , in what they described as juice positions or locations due for leave bluntly refuse to go on leave, and still claim leave allowances.

On the purported outbreak of cholera, the Information Commissioner said that the state is cholera and diphtheria free as all the 112 suspected cases of cholera recorded in eight LGAS of the state have tested negative.

He added that personnel in the health sector of the state government are working round the clock to ensure that any emergency is tackled head on.

“I want to announce to us that Abia is Cholera and diphtheria-free. Between 30th of June and 7th of July, a total of 112 suspected cases of Cholera were reported, cutting across eight LGAs,” he said.

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“Following various tests carried out and the samples collected across these eight LGAs, there were no reported case of death, and not even a confirmed case of Cholera.

“There were some reported cases, about 12 reported cases of diphtheria across the state in particularly in just two LGAs of Osisioma and Umuahia South. Unfortunately, there were three deaths resulting from those suspected cases but the test did not confirm that there were further cases of diphtheria.

Adding her voice, Dr. Ngozi Azodoh, Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, confirmed that all suspected cases of cholera collected across eight LGAS tested negative after laboratory tests, adding that they are working with relevant agencies to ensure that Abia maintains cholera-free status and stressed the need for all to imbibe the attitude of good hygiene.

She declared, “According to protocols, we conducted a rapid diagnostic test, and out of those rapid diagnostic tests, only three came out RDT positive. We had to send those RDT positive cases to the national reference laboratory for confirmation and we are happy that all of them came back negative.

“So we are cholera free as s state. However, we will continue to maintain high levels of surveillance.

“We also had a diphtheria scare at Umueze community, very close to Abia state University Teaching hospital, Aba. We identified 12 people, we treated them and they are doing well. We also designated Abia State University Teaching Hospital as the treatment centre.”

Furthermore, Kanu announced that having almost completed the light up Abia project in the major cities of the state, the process will now move down to the 17 LGAs.

According to him, major roads and streets like Asa road to Bata, Osisioma to MCC Park road , Georges street and Constitution Crescent, all in Aba, Naval College Owerrinta, Bende road among others are being affected.

On road infrastructure, Kanu said that various road projects across the state have continued unabated, despite the rains. In the same vein, the zero-pothole initiative of government has been extended from Abia Tower to the Onuimo axis pending the formal flag off of the expansion of the road by the state government.

In response to a question on recent reversal of Command promotions made by the previous state government, the Special Adviser to the governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ferdinand Ekeoma said that the reversal was necessary following the fragrant abuse of the process by that regime.

He said both the Head of Service and Civil service Commission were taking closer look at the promotions with a view to correcting the harms dissatisfactions they caused in the state civil service.

“The Command Promotion were used to usurp the right of others. For instance, we had a situation where someone who was on salary grade level 12 was just taken far above his seniors on grade levels 13,14 and 15 and appointed a Permanent Secretary,” he said.

“There were many other instances like that, some politically motivated, including those made by the immediate past governor, even when results of election that brought Dr. Otti had been made public.

“So these were causing problems in the system and that is what is being corrected now. We have started the process of correcting the mess.”