‘Al-Makura inherited workers’promotion clog’
For seven straight years, spanning two administrations of former governors, Abdullahi Adamu and Aliyu Akwe Doma, respectively, promotion of workers in Nasarawa State clogged up, plunging workers into a dual crisis of promotion and lack of salary increment, Barrister Clement Ode, a Level 13 staff said.
Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, who assumed office in 2011, three years ago, only inherited the promotion clog which left workers in the state demoralized, Barrister Ode, who is also the Executive Secretary of Nasarawa State Christians Pilgrims Welfare Board told Daily Trust yesterday.
“We had a dual problem; there was no promotion for seven years before 2011. There was no salary increment. My promotion was stagnated at Level 13, when I was qualified for promotion. My promotion could not come because not a single worker in the state saw promotion those years. At Level 13, I was receiving N35, 000 monthly salary. I was demoralized. That was what Al-Makura inherited in 2011,” Ode said.
He was reacting to the recent wave of industrial outburst from the organized labour in the state, which has picked up a campaign against the government of Al-Makura, putting pressures on the administration to implement promotions tied down for about 10 years now.
“Organised labour is not fair to this government. I am seeing the case of conspiracy here; complete blackmail from workers who are allowing politicians to pull strings while they act as puppets for political advantage ahead of 2015 elections,” Barrister Ode said, recalling that the unions sat with Governor Al-Makura in 2011 to negotiate terms which have been paying off since then.
“On Level 13, I was receiving N35, 000 monthly. Now, I am receiving N119, 785 monthly on the same level. I have no promotion yet, but I have enjoyed over 100 percent increment, over and above what the next promotion would have fetched into my pockets, had it come without the increment,” he said, hailing the governor’s implementation of the Federal Government approved minimum wage which raised the minimum salary in the state to N18, 900 since the second month of Al-Makura in office.