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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