NO GOING BACK ON YOUTHS POLITICAL PARTICIPATION - Abia Youths Vow

 By Chukwudi Obi 

The Abia State chapter of Young Visioneers' Association of Nigeria, YVAN, a national youth  pressure group, has called on youths in the state to participate actively in both politics and the process of choosing their representatives.

This is even as the group has rolled out activities to ensure massive public enlightenment and mobilization of youths at the grass root level.

Speaking during their monthly general meeting in Umuahia, the state capital recently,  State Coordinator of the group, Comr Stanly Nwankwo reiterated the group's commitment to ensuring active youths participation in the electoral process in the state.

Comrade Nwankwo who stressed the need for more young people to be actively involved in politics, noted that part of their enlightenment campaign will focus on building the capacity of the youths such that they can hold elective positions as well as hold elected officials accountable apart from participating actively in the electoral process in the state.

According to Nwankwo who urged youths to shun selling their votes for any amount of money, the best way to enthrone true democracy in the state is to ensure that all stakeholders including the youths are active participants in the process of electing their officials.

Nwankwo, however lamented the nonchalant attitudes of many youths in the state to the on going voter registration exercise across the country adding that the figures peddled on some social media platforms indicate that the south east has the lowest number of registered voters.

In his own speech, the state Publicity Secretary of the group,  Ambassador Duke Imandu averred that the group will embark on the sensitization campaign as part of its community mobilization project, insisting that youths who have not registered for their voter's card will be encouraged to do so.

In his words, "YVAN will select some local government areas in Abia that will be visited in the first phase of the sensitization campaign. After that, another group of LGAs will be selected for the next batch."

The Publicity Secretary added that the campaign will expose the youths to the benefits of political participation and dissuade them from being paid agents or mercenaries of desperate politicians whose wish is to kill and maim in order to win elections.

Ambassador Imandu opined that the enlightenment programme will also offer opportunity for the youths to learn financial intelligence, budget tracking and good governance apart from teaching them leadership and management skills even as he hinted that the group will liaise with the Abia State INEC Commissioner and other officials at Local Governments level to ensure a hitch free voter registration exercise in rural communities.

YVAN APPOINTS ABIA STATE CHAPTER INTERIM EXECUTIVES

NATIONAL YOUTH GROUP APPOINTS ABIA CHAPTER INTERIM EXCOS  - Maps out strategies for massive mobilization of youths.
 
By Chukwudi Obi


All is set for a national youth group, Young Visioneers Association of Nigeria (YVAN), Abia State Chapter, to pay familiarization visits to some of the security agencies and justices in the state.

The visits, it was learnt are to solicit for support and partnerships for its campaign on youths involvement in politics, campaign against youth indiscipline and corruption, youths registration for voter's card and campaigning against youth involvement in electoral violence.

This is even as the group has appointed interim officers to fill in vacant positions to help reposition the group in a bid to break new grounds.
These formed part of the highpoints and resolutions taken at the group’s monthly meeting recently held in Umuahia, the Abia State Capital.

The new appointees include:
Comrade Stanley Nwankwo – State Coordinator, Amb. Duke Imandu- Deputy State Coordinator / Publicity Secretary and
Comrade Ikpengwa Uchenna - Secretary.
Others are Comrade Eziaha Odinkenmere – Treasurer, Comrade Yakubu Akofe Mutiu - Organising Secretary, Comrade Clifford Egwu - Welfare Director, Comrade Iyke Atumah - Financial Secretary and Comrade Amos Ocholi - Umuahia South Coordinator.

Some of the resolutions taken at the well attended meeting to ensure the group realize its vision to be a force to reckon with in the state include massive grass root mobilization and sensitization, courtesy visit to members of the judiciary, the various traditional rulers, security agencies, and paid advertisements in radio stations and on social media platforms.

Young Visioneers Association of Nigeria (YVAN) is a national youth pressure group whose aim is to restore the fallen moral standards in the society apart from charting a new course for youths who have a blurred vision of life.

THE SACK OF OVER 400 MOUAU STAFF; THE VICTIMIZER'S PARADE

By Duke Imandu

When the Vice Chancellor of Micheal Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU) started saying to the hearing of the institution's staff that he was getting upset for not being able to employ people from his hometown after few months as VC, people thought it was a mere verbosity. Who could have imagined it was the beginning of the plan to destabilize the university community by a VC who was only one year and four months in that position?

Should I say that since the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, the country has been a jungle of the prey and the predator? This is being played out in MOUAU. At his assumption of office as the Vice Chancellor in March 1, 2016, Prof. Ogbonnaya Otunta declared the regularization interview conducted by the school management inconclussive, and by extension, null and void. He further directed them to re-apply as new job seekers. Not satisfied, he set up a committee to fast track his anti people's agenda. The fault finding committee of Prof. Otunta had a mandate to "look into the credentials" of the over 400 affected staff.

The professor was in a haste to cause injury. As the committee was still working on it's mandate, President Buhari’s government disolved some Federal Universities' Governing Councils and appointed new council members. It seems a deal was struck, and the newly constituted council hurriedly fixed an emergency meeting which obviously was their first meeting. In the meeting, the VC presented his victimization plan to them and, as can obviously be observed, the council fail to achieve any other thing apart from the endorsement of Prof. Otunta's agenda.

Some may argue that his action of sacking the staff could be that the institution was over staffed. But no. That could not be the reason for his action when in just one year and four months as the VC, he has employed many believed to be "his own people". It is a display of chronic nepotism for the VC to also employ his wife while he was busy perfecting the sack of such number of people whose means of livelihood is the work. His body language still speaks loud; he would triple whatever number he has engaged to replace the victims from his cronies, probably after he would have succeeded in disengaging his preys who eventually are not 'his own people'. Where was the job advertised before his wife got employed? He gave his in-law the contract to construct some security posts and fence. Where was the contract advertised and who bidded for it?

It is disheartening that the new governing council upheld this Prof. Ogbonnaya's vendetta against the masses without asking questions, and they went ahead to issue an unpopular report. What should baffle every right thinking person is how a new governing council will have its first meeting to be an emergency meeting held on June 21 , 2017 and in it, the only thing they could achieve was to pass a verdict that over 400 staff should be sacked. The sack letter was alleged to have been typed on a Saturday and the termination took effect from June 30, 2017. Just within one week, every damage was hurriedly done. Neither the report nor the sack letter made mention of the affected staff's outstanding 25% arrears.

Again, it is very grotesque that the MOUAU's VC, Prof. Ogbonnaya has this antecedent of sacking staff enmass. He was alleged to have done the same in Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Uwana, Afikpo, Ebonyi State where over 300 staff were affected. Believably, the VC derives joy from others' agony. Taking this kind of destructive action without considering the multiplier effect is worrisome. The most worrying aspect of this remains that this victimization is not only going to affect the over 400 staff directly involved, but also their dependents. No doubt, this singular action of the VC is going to affect over 10,000 Nigerians. Such a gruesome act!!!
This victimizer, Prof. Francis Ogbonnaya Otunta is on a parrade again. Somebody should stop him now before it is late.

Duke Imandu
Is a concerned citizen.

ABIA YOUTHS ASK GOVERNOR OKEZIE IKPEAZU TO REINSTATE DEMOTED HEADMISTRESS

A youth group in Abia State has called on the Abia State Government of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu to reinstate the demoted headmistress of Amaetiti Primary School , Asaga Ohafia , Mrs. Maryleen Ezichi. The headmistress is being victimized for begging the governor's wife to help them (the teacher) solicit for their over five months unpaid salaries .

The youths made the demand in a press release by the organization , Young Leaders Association of Nigeria .

Read full text after the cut

YOUNG LEADERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA

PRESS RELEASE

RE: Illegal demotion of Mrs. Ezichi Maryleen, Headmistress of Amaetiti Primary School, Asaga Ohafia by the Abia State Government

The Young Leaders Association of Nigeria, also known as Nigerian Youths Forum, Abia State Chapter condemns in strong terms, the continuous victimization of the primary school headmistress whose only offence was to plead for her over five months unpaid salaries by the Governor Okezie Ikpeazu led administration. Mrs. Maryleen Ezichi was the Headmistress of Amaetiti Primary School, Asaga Ohafia until last month, March, when she was allegedly whisked away from her place of work to Umuahia, the state capital and thereafter handed to her, a transfer letter to another primary school in Ukwa-East Local Government Area to resume as a classroom teacher.

The news which was reported first by Punch Newspaper and yet to be refuted by the Abia state government indicate that the innocent woman’s ordeal came as a result of her “embarrassing” the wife of the governor Nkechi Ikpeazu who was in the school to kick-off her one free meal programme for primary school pupils. The 'embarrassment' was that Mrs. Maryleen Ezichi, a mother, pleaded with Nkechi Ikpeazu, a fellow mother, to intercede on behalf of the teachers to the state government for their over five months unpaid salaries to enable them buy foods for their children, pay house rents, take care of the medical need of their wards, pay debts, and other needs. But surprisingly, instead of taking pity on these starving teachers who are putting in their best to groom the primary school pupils for a greater society, the governor’s wife connived with her husband to demote the woman and transfer her to a remote area, about 140 kilometers away, with a stern instruction to resume immediately. This is in contrast to the fact that allocations from FG to the state have not dropped. We also recall that the state received  over 8bn naira in the last two months being part of the Paris Club funds from Federal Government. Yet, basic salaries are owed! This is the height of injustice and inhumanity to humanity. No other type of humiliation can be worse than this.

What baffles us is that the Abia State Government and its officials who are supposed to tell Abia people who elected them the truth of the matter, are busy denying being aware of the event which has been in the public domain for over a week now. We begin to wonder if the present government is turning Abia into a circus. Regrettably, another official of the government, Uche Olehi, who is a Personal Assistant to the Governor on Media was quoted to have said in an interview with an online medium that the headmistress was not redeployed because she complained of unpaid salaries, but because she “was running a beer parlour on the premises of the school”. We have tried so hard to find out that this does not even have iota of truth in it. How will somebody in her right senses run a beer parlour in a primary school? Who will patronize her? The primary school pupils or the unpaid teachers? Or even the farming households in Asaga?  This kind of tales can only come when the government is grasping for grounds to cover up its unfairness and injustice to the people it is meant to protect and advance their course.

We are also bewildered by the actions of the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) and Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) Abia State chapters. They have maintained a dead silence over the matter. The NUT, Abia State Chapter Chairman who spoke to a news medium also claimed ignorance of the incident, taking the same stance of the government and using the same language of government officials. Their silence is not only suspect but runs foul of their slogan that 'injury to one is injury to all'.  We think that they are acting a script given to them by the state government. We fear that the umbrella bodies which are supposed to speak and protect the interests of their members including Mrs. Maryleen Ezichi may have been compromised.

The Young Leaders Association of Nigeria, Abia State Chapter therefore condemns this undue maltreatment of this worthy Abia citizen by the government. We demand that the governor Okezie Ikpeazu led government should not only reinstate Mrs. Maryleen Ezichi but also pay all the teachers' their entitlements . A worker deserves his or her full wage according to a Bible injunction and we know the governor is a practising christian.  She should be praised for being brave and standing up for her right. We also call on other well meaning civil society and human rights groups and other well meaning Nigerians to persuade the Abia State Government to do the right thing. The government should stop insulting our parents, they should stop intimidating and molesting our parents. We do not understand why the government has decided to play hide and seek games with the state’s funds while those who work for the upliftment of the state go to bed hungry and their children die of untreated illnesses.

Duke Imandu
Press Secretary, Young Leaders Association of Nigeria, Abia State Chapter

Engr. Uche Adimoha
State Rep

The 2016 Appropriation Act is now available

The 2016 Appropriation Act is now available. Check below