THERE was a tit-for-tat fight at the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Abuja a few days ago. The Minister in charge of the Ministry, Dave Umahi, came to work at 9.30 a.m. only to meet a handful of civil servants at their desks. Umahi, who ruled Ebonyi State like an Emperor, directed that the gate of the Ministry be locked against the latecomers. Thinking that the workers would come crawling to him with a plea for forgiveness, Umahi never imagined what hit him following the directive. He got the shock of his life when the civil servants also decided to lock him inside his office.
Not done with him, they went ahead to cut power and water supply to the Minister’s office as well as put off the generator. For the five hours the stand-off lasted, there was a bedlam in the Ministry. There was no movement within the precinct of the Ministry at Mabushi, Abuja, as the workers blocked all the roads to the Ministry.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, who came visiting, could not gain entry to the Ministry and had to turn back. The Muslim workers went ahead to observe their prayers on the road after which they joined their colleagues to embark on a protest to demand for the removal of the Minister. After the five-hour protest, Umahi called for a truce by requesting for a meeting with the Directors among the late comers and union leaders. They however insisted that he must come down from his high horse to address all the staff. With the day far spent without much achieved, Umahi was forced to eat humble pie and he eventually went down to meet with the workers.
At that meeting, he was tongue-lashed like a toddler by a union leader who spoke on behalf of the workers. In plain language, Umahi was told that he lacked the power to lock out civil servants and that many of the rubbish he did while in Ababakaliki and got away with, should not be imported to Abuja. He ‘respectfully’ insulted Umahi to his face and there were no soldiers or DSS officials to harass and intimidate the workers.
On the day of this showdown in Abuja, it was karma at work. While he was the number citizen of Ebonyi State, Umahi was the Lord of the Manor. His words were laws that must be obeyed. Anyone who dared to offend the tin god was disgraced. He openly embarrassed his people, not once, not twice, but on several occasions. Examples are many. On Tuesday, October 4, last year, during an inspection of work at the Ebonyi Airport, Onueke, he claimed that some civil servants came late to work just like it happened in Abuja, but rather than locking the gate on them, he directed that the late comers should be forced to sit on the road while soldiers in his convoy whipped the offenders with a horsewhip. When the scandal broke, Umahi, while not denying that he humiliated the workers, claimed that the victims were not civil servants, but miscreants.
Few years before then, precisely on October 2, 2019, Umahi’s convoy was temporarily blocked by mourners in Onicha, who were on their way to bury a departed soul. Thinking that their Governor would sympathize with them and drop some wads of naira notes before proceeding with his journey, the mourners were in for a rude shock. Umahi, who would not tolerate such effrontery, got all of them arrested. At a public function the following day inside the government house, he gave a chilling directive to his security aides: “Next time the Aide-de-Camp should order for a shoot as it is illegal to block the Governor’s convoy. If anybody is killed in the course of the shooting, it is allowed in law”.
Umahi gave a similar directive in March 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown. There was general restriction of movement across the country but for those that broke the law in Ebonyi State, they never imagined what their Governor dished out to them. Thirty-seven persons were arrested for violating the COVID-19 restriction of movement directive and were all arrested and quarantined. He also directed security men at the isolation centres to shoot any of those arrested that may try to escape. In addition, he gave instruction that anyone caught in public without a facemask should be seized and caned publicly.
A reporter with the Sun Newspaper, Chijioke Agwu, soon became a victim of Umahi’s high-handedness. The then Governor had alleged that Agwu published in the newspaper’s April 17, 2020 edition, an inaccurate report on Lassa Fever outbreak in the state. For that offence, Agwu was arrested and detained without trial for several days. When his anger was satiated, he set Agwu free, but eventually banned him and Peter Okutu of the Vanguard Newspapers for life, from entering any government facility in the state. Okutu, the Vanguard reporter, also spent some time behind bars on the order of the then Governor for allegedly being fond of degrading Ebonyi State – whatever that means.
He told other journalists working in the state that they would not be given the right to fair trial under the country’s laws: “If you think you have the pen, we have the koboko (a whip made from cow or goat hide). Let’s leave the court alone. Ebonyi people are very angry with the press and let me warn you, I won’t be able to control them or know when they unleash mayhem on you if you continue to write to create panic in the state”.
These are some of the atrocities Umahi committed as Governor in Ebonyi State and got away with. Was he thinking of perpetrating similar indecorous behaviour as a Minister in Abuja? While I do not subscribe to the not-too-elegant manner the Labour leader spoke to Umahi, it is wrong for the Minister to lock the gate against civil servants for coming late to work. This should not be what should be on the front burner in the 21st century. There are laid down rules and regulations in the Public Service Rules to deal with such matters.
The Minister should have directed the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry to issue a query to the affected staff as he does not have the power to punish civil servants directly. The offence which got Umahi angry and for which he wanted to punish them falls under Misconduct under Section 3 of the Public Service Rules. According to the Section, ‘Misconduct is defined as a specific act of wrong-doing or an improper behaviour which is inimical to the image of the service and which can be investigated and proved’. Umahi neither investigated nor showed any proof that the workers were guilty of misconduct.
Again, there is a specific Section in the civil service rule dealing on lateness to work. The rule states that a civil servant can be queried for ‘habitual lateness to work’ not for a one-off lateness. In that case, the staff would have been a habitual late comer, and would first of all be issued a verbal query, and if he/she persists, would be issued a written query. Such a staff must be given the right to respond to the query, and if his response is found to be unsatisfactory, then disciplinary action will be contemplated. Even at that, the staff to be disciplined by a Ministry has the right to appeal to the Federal Civil Service Commission.
Many of the staff complained that they were not habitual late comers, and that the current realities in the country forced them to report late for work. They said that many of them live in the outskirts of Abuja and could not afford the huge cost involved in getting accommodation within the city while the recent hike in the price of fuel has also contributed to their woes as many of them could not afford the high cost of transportation during the early morning rush hours.
However, even before the current economic downturn, the public service has become a drain on the nation’s resources consuming trillions of Naira in salary and emolument without adequate commensurate work down by the civil servants. Many of them are lazy and unproductive, contributing little or nothing in the work place. They get to work at 12 noon and are already on their way home by 3P.M, yet the level of corruption among them is mind boggling. Have we considered installing clocking machines in all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government? That is the sure way of tackling late-coming among workers.
Apart from that, there are several civil servants who have left the shores of Nigeria in search of greener pastures but who are still collecting salaries from various Ministries and Departments of government. Many others have stalls and shops in the markets and do not really have the time to sit and work.
The Public Service in Nigeria is so enmeshed in corruption that many of them would find it difficult surviving in the private sector. It is time for the government to carry out a holistic reform of the civil service. Many of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies have an over-bloated work force. A job that 20 staff can do, you have more than 200 earning salaries for, and doing nothing. A friend got the shock of his life when he discovered that two drivers were attached to his office, yet he has one official car. He had to send one back to the pool. They hide files, demand for gratification, and many of them are not fit for an efficient and productive civil service that could birth a productive nation.
The day we have smart, robust and tech-savvy public servants, Nigeria would well be on the march towards greatness. I do not see Nigeria on such a journey with the kind of public servants we have presently. Their union leaders are already up in arms negotiating a better deal for them with the Federal Government. Figures like N200,000 is presently being canvassed for as the minimum wage. I wish them luck. They go on strike at the slightest whim, while giving back little in return.
What happened to Umahi could best be described as karma. With his attitude of dishing out disrespect to his people in Ebonyi while he was Governor, and carrying on in the same manner in his new position, it seems befitting for him to be served his own dish for breakfast.
See you next week.
Akintunde is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Glittersonline newspaper. His syndicated column appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.