Tuesday 11 April 2017

ARBITRARINESS IN PLATEAU STATE: UGONSA WRITES THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OVER THE PLIGHT OF THE GRADUATE NURSES



Dear Governor,
His Excellency Rt. Hon. Simon Lalong,
The Executive Governor of Plateau State,
Office of the Executive Governor,
Government House, Jos,
Plateau State, Nigeria.
Sir,

 NURSES’ EMPLOYMENT MALADY AT COLLEGE OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY VOM: A SAD ANTHITHESIS TO YOUR IMPECCABLE RESCUE ADMINISTRATION THAT SHOULD BE URGENTLY NIPPED IN THE BUD.

The University Graduates of Nursing Science Association (UGONSA) also known as Graduate Nurses Association of Nigeria (GNAN), comprising Nurses with a minimum of first degree in Nursing Science, strongly hails your commitment to governance for rising above average in this era of economic crunch, to still empower the people of Plateau state economically especially through recruitment into the State Civil Service. It is only an administration that is strongly committed to serving the people that can muster such will and courage to recruit up to 4000 unemployed graduates as teachers and another 400 into the State board of internal revenue, at a swoop, to boost manpower in the State’s educational and revenue sector in the face of a dwindling economy orchestrated by the recession currently ravaging the country.
  
     2. However, this association wishes to draw the attention of Your Excellency to the employment malady at the College of Nursing and Midwifery Vom, which it considers an antithesis to the people-oriented policies of your rescue administration.
        
     3. From our register, Plateau State has about one hundred unemployed graduate nurses, many of whom have also specialized in Midwifery and/or Public health. Rather than engage these youths meaningfully, as was done for their counterparts in the educational and internal revenue sector, some of them were deceptively made to accept to offer their services free-of-charge, as “volunteers”, with the hypocritical caveat that they shall be properly engaged once opportunity avails in the civil service.
     
4. Despite this flowery capsule of deception, the recent malady of re-engagement of 25 retired nurses on contract basis at the expense of the young unemployed graduate nurses finally gave credence to our mute suspicion that the “volunteer scheme” might be nothing short of a sinister agenda for ripping off and feeding fat off the sweat of these young graduates by subjugating them into “slave labour” in their own State. Such wickedness is very callous and unacceptable!
        
5. More worrisome is the fact that one month Salary of one of these re-engaged retirees is enough to pay one freshly recruited graduate nurse for 3 months. Corollary, the opportunity offered to these 25 retirees was capable of taking up to 75 graduate nurses in fresh employment based on the extant civil service structure. 
 
     6. The questions that beg answers are: How many of the children or wards of those that engaged these unemployed graduate nurses as “volunteers” are equally working as “volunteers” without salaries in the State? Why was the available opportunity heartlessly ceded to retirees instead of to young graduates, not even those that were lured into enslavement as “volunteers”? For how long shall they be further debased and exploited in the sickening guise of “volunteers”? Why were retired teachers not re-engaged like the retired nurses in the place of the youths (graduates) that were freshly employed as teachers? Why were retired civil servants not equally re-engaged for the internal revenue job at the expense of the youths? Why were the youths employed into teaching and internal revenue not engaged as “volunteers” like their counterparts in nursing? Are the Nurses of Plateau State origin “second class citizens” in their own State? Does such treatment not constitute an antithesis of the good and commendable people-friendly policies, actions and agenda of the rescue administration in Plateau State? 
     
      7. Your Excellency, it is pertinent at this juncture to humbly and respectfully point out that our writing you directly became necessary following what seems like a “conspiracy of silence” of your concerned surbodinates and other stakeholders in the issue when it was pointed out to them. For example, through courtesy visits, our members in your State verily drew the attention of the persons occupying the following offices to the subject matter (even before the appalling issuance of appointment letters to the retirees’ as contract staff) yet the malady eventually erupted grotesquely: the Honourable Commissioner of Health, the Chairman House Committee on Health of the Plateau State House of Assembly, the Provost College of Nursing and Midwifery, Vom, the Director of Nursing Services in the State Minstry of Health, the Honourable Commissioner for Higher Education, and His Excellency- the Deputy Governor of the State.
    8. It is awful and despicable, to say the least, that in Plateau of all States, youths in the Nursing Profession are not strategically mentored for value-added service delivery and taking over from the aging population, but rather are relegated to the background, exploited, debased and made to look like outcasts in their own State.

PRAYER
In the light of this ugly development, members of this Association humbly, sincerely and passionately pray Your Excellency to

       i          i. carry us along in your commendable rescue administration by extending your youth-centred employment opportunity into the civil service to the unemployed youths,  of Plateau State Origin, holding the Bachelor of Nursing Science (B.N.Sc) degree, who are rightly qualified to be employed in the health sector.

     i         ii. direct an immediate stoppage to the sinister “labour slavery” masked in the subterfuge of “volunteerism” that has been used to exploit and debase our members and conversely direct the immediate employment and integration of those, that were deceived into subscribing to such a fraudulent inhumane scheme, into the civil service proper.

  iii.      iii. reverse the vexatious malady of contracting out the available nursing job opportunities to retirees (who ordinarily should be enjoying their retirement and pensions but shamelessly, out of sheer gluttony, prefer that the civil service collapse on their heads than allow the younger ones take over) and fill the vacancy with as many unemployed graduate nurses as it can contain.   

Your Excellency, we have utmost confidence that the young graduates who are very eager to find means of showcasing their untapped talents have better potentials and enthusiasm to propel the health agenda of your rescue administration than the old, tired and retired folks that have resorted to a shameless dance of mendacity in cahoots with some highly placed individuals in Plateau State.

Your highly anticipated response will be greatly appreciated!

Submitted with greatest sense of respect and responsibility!!
Signed:
                                                              

Chief (Hon) S.E.O. EGWUENU                                                      Nurse G.I. Nshi
     National President                                                                          National Secretary

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