Senate seeks reinstatement of sacked Okpara Varsity workers

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, said the decision would be communicated to the plenary on December 19. Anyanwu, in an interview with our correspondent, said the committee took the decision to reinstate the staff after its investigation of the petitions filed by 104 affected staff on behalf of others. A member of the committee, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, also confirmed the decision, saying, “The committee’s report has not been approved by the Senate sitting in plenary taking place as from December 18.” Recall on July 4 thenigerialawyer exclusively reported that the decision to sack the workers was taken during a meeting of the Governing Council of the university. The institution was alleged to be owing the affected workers six months’ salaries and the remaining 25 per cent of their entitlements, a development which threw the institution into confusion. However, the current Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities in the institution, Prof. Chinyere Echendu, said the sacking of the 400 workers was irreversible. Echendu said, “No worker was sacked. Anybody who told you that is not telling the truth. You are talking about some people who were given letters of appointment on a temporary basis. And that automatically terminated after one year.” Although some of the affected workers claimed they attended the regularisation interview conducted in 2016 by the former VC, their spokesperson, Mr. Chidi Nwankwo, noted that as soon as the current vice-chancellor assumed office he allegedly declared the regularisation interview inconclusive and mandated all affected workers to reapply with good reasons why their appointments should be renewed. He said, “We all reapplied, although we were apprehensive that the new VC wanted to sack most of us and replace us with his kinsmen and friends based on previous experiences. “Some of us were offered temporary appointments. The majority of us were interviewed after sometime, which is a standard civil service rule, in a bid to regularise our appointments.” Nwankwo also said Edeoga did not have enough time to sign the letters of regularisation for the affected workers or authorise the registrar to do same before activities marking his pulling out commenced.]]>