In a congratulatory letter Ref No.UG/NAT/20/PS/FMOI/01 dated October 12, 2020, the University Graduates of Nursing Science Association (UGONSA) had tasked the new Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Interior (FMOI) to address the age-long systemic injustice meted on nurses in terms of Placement, promotion and career progression by the Ministry. The texts of the letter are as posted below:
The Permanent Secretary,
Federal Ministry of Interior (FMOI),
Block F, Old Federal Secretariat,
Sir,
NURSES CONGRATULATE
YOU ON YOUR DESERVED APPOINTMENT AS THE PERMANENT SECRETARY FEDERAL MINISTRY OF
INTERIOR AND PASSIONATELY IMPLORE YOU TO URGENTLY INTERVENE TO END THE
PERENNIAL INJUSTICES NURSES SUFFER IN THE MINISTRY
We are delighted
to extend our warm Nightingalic congratulations to you over your recent
appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, to serve the country in
another great capacity as the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Interior
(FMOI). It was the special vigour and hard work you elaborated in the past in
other realms of service to the country that paved way for your elevation to
this new post to help the country solve its internal challenges that are
growing in complexity at this auspicious moment in our national life. We give
all glory to God for this positive development and wish you every success in
your new assignment.
2.
However,
we wish to draw your esteemed attention to perennial injustice nurses have
suffered in the Ministry of Interior for your urgent intervention.
3.
We
make haste to call your esteemed attention to this injustice because of the
inclination that neither you nor President Muhammadu Buhari (who appointed you
to this post) condones or adulates injustice and marginalization.
4.
As
at date, the FMOI is the only Federal Ministry that is yet to implement extant
circulars with regard to placement, promotion and career progression of nurses.
We have approached the FMOI and the Civil Defence,
Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board (CDCFIB) on several occasions
to right the wrongs yet no reprieve in sight. The passivity of the FMOI towards
doing the rightful and lawful thing for the nursing profession was so
frustrating that we have to approach the Federal Ministry of Health (our mother
ministry) for intervention. Despite the FMOH reaching out to the FMOI
requesting that the FMOI implement the extant circulars for nurses vide its
letter Ref No. C.6093/12/74 dated 26th August, 2020 (herewith marked
and attached as Annexure A) we are yet to hear from the FMOI or the CDCFIB or
see anything from their stable.
5.
To enable you comprehensively understand
and appreciate the subject matter, we are going to summarize the problem and
then chronicle our historic tortuous past efforts at getting the FMOI, the CDCFIB
and the services under them to obey the law of the very Federal Government they
serve vis-à-vis implementation of the
lawful extant circulars on placement,
promotion and career progression of nurses. We therefore appeal
to you to kindly find time to read through this letter and its entire annexures.
6.
The crux of the matter is that the FMOI,
through its parastatals [the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration
Services Board (CDCFIB)], inexplicably singled out Registered Nurses (RN) with
Bachelor of Nursing Science (BNSc) degree as the only university graduates of
the core healthcare disciplines to be placed under the inspectorate cadre
whereas the university graduates of other core healthcare disciplines are
placed on the superintendent cadre. This has resulted in an uncanny situation
whereby candidates not possessing a minimum of first degree in nursing as
required by law are heading nursing units (the equivalent of directorate cadre
in the Civil Service) despite that the eligibility for attaining such level is sine qua non of possession of a minimum
of first degree in nursing as nursing is a profession of its own (sui generis) allied to no other
profession and with no other profession allied to it.
7.
In the year 2018, when we noticed the
ugly occurrence in an advert for recruitment made by the CDCFIB for recruitment
into the Prisons Service (now Correctional Service) we initially thought it was
a mistake, possibly made out of lack of adequate information on the extant
placement of RN with BNSc degree in the Federation’s Services by those at the helms
of affair in the board (CDCFIB).
8.
In the said advert (made vide Daily
Trust Newspaper of Monday 30 April, 2018)
the position for all Registered Nurses (RN), including RN with BNSc
degree, was listed in the inspectorate cadre as Inspector of Prison (IP) Nursing,
CONHESS 06 whereas the University
Graduates of other core healthcare disciplines such as Medicine and Pharmacy
were listed in the superintendent cadre as Superintendent of Prison (SP)
Medical/ veterinary,
CONMESS 02 (respectively for medical and
veterinary Doctors) and as Deputy Superintendent of Prison (DSP) Pharmacy,
CONHESS 09 (for Pharmacists) [Please kindly refer Annexure B for the said
Correctional Service job Advert].
9.
Giving them the benefit of doubt that it
was not intentionally done, we humbly approached the FMOI and the CDCFIB {vide
our letter Ref No. UGONSA/018/FMOI/01 dated 18th May, 2018} and the Nigerian
Correctional Service (then Nigerian Prisons Service) {vide our letter Ref No.
UGONSA/NAT/19/CG/NPS/01 dated 4th March, 2019} with detailed
explanation of the extant placement of RN with BNSc degree in the Federation’s
services praying for correction of the mistake of not listing RN with BNSc
degree on the Superintendent cadre as was done for the University Graduates of
other core healthcare professions.
10. The
Nigerian Correctional Service in her response to our letter {vide Ref No. NPS
114/S.33/1/86 dated 25th June, 2019} acknowledged that our demand was genuine
but averred that it has forwarded our complaint, for the necessary action, to
the CDCFIB on whose purview it lies to make the correction. [Please kindly
refer to the Nigerian Correctional Service’s response hereby attached as
Annexure C].
11. As
we awaited the correction from the FMOI, having written them a reminder {vide
our letter Ref No.UG/NAT/19/ FMOI/01 dated 4th March, 2019}, came the
unequivocal confirmation that the earlier action of the CDCFIB [whereby all
Registered Nurses (RN), including RN with BNSc degree, were listed in the
inspectorate cadre in the Nigerian Correctional Service job advert], was not a
mistake but a deliberate plot not to obey the extant law as pertains to
placement of nurses with degree in nursing in the Services of the Federation.
12. This
is because, in August 2019, the CDCFIB made another advert (this time for
recruitment into the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, online
via their website https://cdfipb.careers/jobs/civil-defence)
in which [despite the unambiguous clarifications we have made to them] they yet
further listed all Registered Nurses (RN), including the University Graduates
of Nursing Science (.i.e RN with BNSc degree), under the inspectorate cadre
whereas the University Graduates of other core healthcare disciplines equally
advertised were listed in the superintendent cadre.
13. For
example, in the advert Medical Doctors, Dentist and Optometrist (who are all
University Graduates like the RN with BNSc degree) were listed in the Category
A [.i.e. the superintendent cadre] as Superintendent Corps (SC) Medical
Doctors/ Dentist/ Optometrists, CONMESS 02 respectively whereas their
counterparts in nursing [the University Graduates of Nursing Science, i.e. RN
with BNSc) were listed in the Category B (.i.e. the inspectorate cadre) as
Inspector of Corps (IC) CONHESS 07. [Please kindly refer Annexure D for the
NSCDC job advert].
14. Not
deterred by the confirmed deliberate action of wanton marginalization and
debasement of our dear nursing profession, we once more respectfully approached
the CDCFIB {vide our letter Ref No. UG/NAT/19/CG/ CDFIBP /02 dated 19th August,
2019} with all the extant circulars requesting them to obey the extant law and
be fair to the graduate nurses by placing them on the same superintendent cadre
where they placed the university graduates of other core healthcare
disciplines.
15. To
ensure that the matter was not again swept under the carpet we reported it to
the current Minister of Interior vide our letter to him shortly after his
inauguration {Ref No. UG/NAT/19/FMOI/02 dated 30th September, 2019}.
16. Despite all the well-documented efforts we
have made to make the CDCFIB [and the Federal Ministry of Interior (FMOI) that
oversees it] to do the rightful and lawful thing, it is becoming clearer that there
is an incomprehensible inclination to breaking the law than obeying it for
inexplicable reasons other than that the people involved are nurses, who in the
thinking or out of primordial sentiments of some top wigs in the FMOI &
CDCFIB should be marginalized, traumatized, debased and treated as if they are
second class citizens of this great country because of their professional
leaning.
17. This
is especially as the most recent advert made by the CDCFIB on March 13th,
2020 for recruitment into the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) via the NIS
website, https://immigration.gov.ng/advertisement-for-vacancies/,
again listed the University Graduates of other core healthcare professions on
the superintendent cadre except the university Graduates of Nursing Science
[please kindly refer Annexure E for the most recent CDCFIB advert for
recruitment into NIS made this year, 2020].
18. With
the repetition of such aberrant and provocative act of willfully portraying the
nursing degree as subservient to other degrees in this year’s advert for
employment into the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), despite having been
adequately informed about the right thing, we were compelled to seek the
intervention of the Federal Ministry of Health, FMOH, (our mother Ministry) to
speak truth to the FMOI and CDCFIB, hence the FMOH’s memo to the FMOI (attached
herewith as Annexure A).
19. It
is incontrovertible that whatever qualified the University Graduates of other
core healthcare professions to ply the superintendent cadre also qualifies
their counterparts in nursing to ply the same cadre. If not so, we would
appreciate that the CDCFIB and the FMOI furnish us with information on what
qualified the university degree of other core healthcare professions to ply the
superintendent cadre that does not qualify the university degree of nursing to
ply the same cadre.
20. It is pertinent to point out that the
Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) Award of the year 1981 (hereby attached as Annexure
L) was unequivocal in its declaration that Nursing is a profession Sui Generis and that both professions of
Nursing and Pharmacy are on parity in Nigeria as is the case in Great Britain.
Corollary, the fact that the admission requirements & course duration for
both Nursing and Pharmacy for the first degree in the university are similar, confers
that the first degrees of both professions [i.e. Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm)
and the Bachelor of Nursing Science (BNSc)] shall be accorded similar measure in
the schemes of things.
21. For
the eligibility of heading a nursing unit in the CDCFIB services (akin to a
Director of Nursing heading the Nursing Unit in the mainstream Civil Service),
the Nursing & Midwifery Council of Nigeria, NMCN, (the statutory regulatory
body for the nursing in Nigeria), the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and the
Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) had astutely
maintained that nursing a unique profession on and of its own globally (sui generis) allied to no other
profession and with no other profession allied to it and have variously averred
vide many extant circulars and memos that whoever MUST ply the directorate
cadre of Nursing vis-à-vis head a
nursing unit MUST possess a minimum of first degree in nursing (.i.e BNSc/B.Sc
Nursing) [Kindly refer the
documents marked and attached as Annexure F, G, H, I, J & K].
22. It
defies comprehension how the FMOI which ordinarily should be the avatar of rule
of law turned out to be the only Ministry running afoul of the law as it
concerns placement,
promotion and career progression of nurses. Changing this ugly narrative in
your tenure as the Permanent Secretary, FMOI, will be an indelible landmark the
nursing profession shall never cease to reference.
23. As
we gleefully welcome and celebrate your appointment as the Permanent Secretary,
FMOI, we wish to emphasize that the hope of our deeply traumatized members now
lie on your donning a patriotic fatherly garb to do justice to all Nigerians
irrespective of professional or any other leaning and thus humbly request that
you make haste to salvage the nursing profession from the age-long unwarranted
brutality, debasement and marginalization suffered in the hand of the FMOI and
the CDCFIB, which our members now find extremely difficult to endure any
longer.
PRAYER
We
most fervently pray that you use your God-given new position as the Permanent
Secretary, Federal Ministry of Interior (FMOI) to prevail on the Civil Defence,
Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services Board (CDCFIB) to do the rightful
and lawful thing for the nursing profession vide deployment of due process in
the placement, remuneration, and career progression of nurses under its
services, by seeing that it
1. employs
the university graduates of nursing (.i.e. RN possessing B.N.Sc/B.Sc.Nursing
degree) on the superintendent cadre as is done for the university graduates of
other core healthcare disciplines.
2. corrects
the career pathway of the graduate nurses already employed in the Civil
Defence, Correctional, Fire and Immigration Services from the inspectorate to
the superintendent cadre.
3. implement
Grade Level 09 as the entry point for Registered Nurses (RN) possessing
B.N.Sc/B.Sc.Nursing degree in line with the provision of the extant circulars of the Nigerian Government
(see Annexure A page 3 & 4).
4. upgrade
to Grade Level 09 the existing Nurse Officers possessing B.N.Sc/B.Sc.Nursing
degree who were employed before 8th September, 2016 but are still below the new base of Grade
Level 09 effective from 8th September, 2016 (being the date of
release of the circular REF No. HCSF/EIR/CND/S.100/ST/97 by the office of the
Head of Civil Service of the Federation) as prescribed by the Civil Service
circular, Ref No. B63279/S.7/II/T/273 dated 24th April, 2002 (See
Annexure A page 5).
5
. upgrade
all graduate nurses (i.e. RN with B.N.Sc/B.Sc.Nursing degree) who were wrongly
employed below the new base of Grade Level 09 after 8th September, 2016 to
Grade Level 09 effective from the date of their employment as prescribed by the
Civil Service circular, Ref No. B63279/S.7/II/T/273 dated 24th April, 2002 (See
Annexure A page 5).
6. limits
the headship of nursing unit to only candidates possessing a minimum of first
degree in nursing as prescribed by law and done for other core healthcare
professions such as Medicine, Pharmacy, and Medical Laboratory Science.
Please,
accept our heartfelt Congratulations!
Signed:
CHIEF (HON.) S.E.O. EGWUENU NURSE P.O. ETENG
National President
Ag.National Secretary
Well done UGONSA
ReplyDeleteMay God crown your efforts with success.Amen
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