Date Published: 05/25/09
HAPPY DAYS FOR AKWA IBOM WORKERS
By David David
When workers from the public service and the private sector gathered at the Uyo Township Stadium on May 1, 2009, there were the usual match pasts and a thick air of expectations. The workers knew the man they have come to dub the most labour friendly governor in Nigeria. They knew that each time he came their way, something would happen. True to type, Gov. Godswill Akpabio did not disappoint. He came with a bag full of goodies.
Amidst solidarity songs and intermittent thunderous applauses, the governor reeled out his May Day gifts to the state’s organized labour. He announced the donation of 10 eighteen-seater buses to 10 industrial unions.
He announced a 50 per cent rebate as a relief in Pay As You Earn Tax to all workers in the state; reiterated the 100 percent increase in car loans to the workers in the state. He told the cheering workers that the days of agitations and strikes were over as his government was committed to making their lives worth living and bettering their work conditions in all things.
The Holy Scripture must have had Akwa Ibom workers in mind when it recorded that when others say there is a casting down, you will say there is a lifting up. The cloud of doubt and insecurity hanging over workers all over the world seems to be so far removed that workers in the employs of the Akwa Ibom State Government do not recognize the existence of any melt down. They read and watch the plight of fellow workers elsewhere in the media and pray that the God that has visited them would also visit fellow workers caught on the wrong side of economic adversity.
Workers in Akwa Ibom State have since May 2007 woken up to the realities that the civil service could also provide ample opportunities for career advancement, job satisfaction and a reward system commensurate with the amount of work done. They have realized that there is also joy and pride in being called a civil servant, a name that once connoted idleness, poverty and a low life.
The colour and character of the service have been so enhanced that the civil service has started attracting the brightest and the best.
For a system that was once rejected and in some cases accepted as a last resort for job seekers, something fundamental must have taken place that has changed the perception of a never-do-well system to something to seek after.
Watchers of political developments in Akwa Ibom State would recall that during the campaigns leading to the 2007 governorship election, civil service welfare was brought up to the fore as a major campaign issue. This often forgotten issue became important when the PDP governorship candidate then, Chief Godswill Akpabio, drew attention to the low productivity of the civil service occasioned by the lack of attention and motivation of those in the service. He declared then that such a civil service would not be able to keep pace with the type of government he would constitute if elected. This concern elicited some debates among labour watchers. While some agreed that the service could get better, others felt he was making mere political pronouncements that would end at the end of that governorship election.
Labour leaders who had had some close contacts with him decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and that led to a major collision of all labour unions in the state. Chief Godswill Akpabio was given an unprecedented endorsement by labour that sign-posted his overwhelming electoral victory at the polls. That endorsement was the first of its kind and a major shift in political participation of labour in Akwa Ibom State. It was like burning down the bridge to swim and sink with the man who best approximates what agitates labour as a significant political bloc.
This gamble paid off handsomely with the election of Chief Akpabio as governor. Labour had, all of a sudden become a major stakeholder in the government of the state. When it was time to share the booty of electoral victory, labour became a visible participant. The Nigeria Labour Congress chairman, comrade Udo Kirian Akpan, was chosen to represent labour at the cabinet level, an outstanding achievement. A whole bureau, dedicated to labour matters was created to underscore the importance the then new administration held labour. This definite recognition of labour led to a positive reassessment of self worth by workers. They began to see the government as theirs, resulting in not only shoring up workers’ confidence, but in positively redirecting worker’s attitudes and commitment to work.
Governor Akpabio, recognizing the importance of manpower development, immediately set in motions the reorganization and restructuring of the civil service training school. He tried to bring back the fading glory of the service through education in the ethos of public service. A bureau of civil service matters was set up to ensure professionalism, tapping from a rejuvenated civil service training center, with an upgraded facilities and a bus for transportation.
He did not stop there, all hitherto stopped trainings were lifted and civil servants sent on training programmes in Nigeria and abroad. At present over 5000 are currently benefiting from these programmes.
They call him digital governor, and so he insisted that they must also be digitally aware. The Akwa Ibom State Government, in a bid to make the state civil service meet up with Gov. Akpabio’s dream service, made available $1.5m worth of computers and accessories to all government ministries and parastatals. This was to ensure that productivity is raised through a technology driven civil service.
The massive deployment of resources into training and manpower development is borne out of Chief Akpabio’s belief that the civil service drives the engine of any government. To achieve the accelerated development of the state therefore, those drivers become very important. In addition, these training programmes were also aimed at making them more proficient and professional in today’s increasingly competitive world.
The Akwa Ibom State Government, in a bid to inject fresh blood into the service, has in the last two years facilitated the recruitment of well over 1000 workers of various cadres, including medical personnel into the civil service. For the recruited medical personnel, a house and a car come with the bargain. To further attract qualified hands into the state’s health sector, the governor introduced a 22 per cent salary increase for medical doctors and 20 per cent increase for nurses and other para-medical personnel.
The largesse in the health sector was not isolated as other workers also enjoyed various degrees of increases. In 2007, the Chief Akpabio’s government was one of the first in the federation to pay the N6, 500 minimum wages to workers, increasing it the same year by 15 per cent. While the bickering on whether to increase or not to increase teacher’s salaries by other states was going on, the Akwa Ibom State Government increased the salary of teachers in its employ by 27.5 per cent. This was done to bring out the best in the teachers in the wake of the introduction of the state’s free and compulsory education programme.
To further boost the moral of workers in the state, Chief Akpabio has from his first year in office introduced what has come to be known as the “thirteenth month” salary. This is an end of the year package that enables each worker to go home with 100 per cent of his one month salary bonus.
These welfare packages are all embedded in the states reform programme in the public service aimed at restoring confidence in the service, creation of wealth and increased service delivery needed for the accelerated development of the state.
In a bid to recognize excellence and engender the spirit of healthy competition, the government introduced the productivity award that now motivates proficiency and stimulates increased performance.
With the public service reform agenda and a crop of happy civil servants, the state is set to reap the benefit of a modern and accountable civil service system that will be the envy of other states in Nigeria.
