FMC OWERRI CRISIS: NLC AND HER SISTER UNIONS CANNOT BE JUDGE IN THEIR OWN CASE!
It is no longer
news that Nigeria Labour Congress( NLC) and the Trade Union
Congress(TUC), have given the federal government a 21-day ultimatum to
reverse the reinstatement of the embattled medical director ( MD) of the
Federal Medical Centre( FMC ) Owerri,Dr (Mrs) Angela Uwakwem . I want
to notify Nigerians that it is only the members of Joint Health Sector
Unions (JOHESU) in FMC Owerri that are opposing the reinstatement of the
MD and that the national president,Mr Ayubba Wabba, of one of the two
factions of the NLC that gave that ultimatum is a member of JOHESU. It
was the same JOHESU members that raise a false alarm against the MD when
she blocked the loopholes through which they embezzle hospitals funds .
I want Nigerians to ask the members of JOHESU why they do not want the
reinstatement of the embattled MD.
A cursory look at
FMC Owerri will show that the presence of the embattled MD is a threat
to some unscrupulous workers who live above their incomes . She
introduced the Public-Private Partnership ( PPP) in the laboratory which
was for probity and accountability but due to the fact that many cabals
felt 'aggrieved' ,they incited other gullible workers ,gave the
embattled MD a bad name in order to hang her. They first claimed she did
not follow due process in establishing the PPP and that she awarded
the scheme to her firm but it was investigated and found to be false.
Why are the members of JOHESU against PPP when they are the ones
disturbing us all these years with their so-called international
practices? Do they really know the interpretative meaning of that phrase
or are they mischievously feigning ignorance of the true meaning ? In
the international community today,many public institutions survive on
PPP because it will help curb dereliction of duty by workers and
corruption.
Consider for an
instance ,Mr Ayubba Wabba ,is supposed to be working in a hospital but
due to laxity in our civil service and in our hospital,today he is the
national president of a faction of NLC. I challenge them to show me
anywhere in the world where Essential service providers like hospital
workers,army and polîce officers et cetera are national leaders of their
countries' trade unions? I am aware that the Nigerian constitution in
s40 gives an inalienable rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and
association but there must be professional decorum on the part of health
workers. As medical workers there is the type of associations we are
not supposed to be part of if really the health of our patients is our
common goal. That will tell Nigerians the real cause of the incessant
crises in our health sector. While doctors are busy
studying,brainstorming ,attending clinical reviews,conferences
,seminars,workshops, update courses, running their clinics ,ward rounds,
operating theatres et cetera,our supposed neighbours who have all the
time in the world are busy forming different unions and perfectly
scheming on how to oust us from the health sector.
There is no union
you cannot see in the health sector. JOHESU should tell Nigerians that
they are afraid of the introduction of PPP in our health sector even
when there is a unit for that in our federal ministry of health. PPP
will never allowe such scenario that allowed Ayubba Wabba to leave his
primary duty in the hospital to go and be playing to the gallery at the
NLC national Secretariat .How many MTN,GLO,ETISALAT,Airtell or
multinational companies' workers that are among the national executive
of NLC ? Now let us go down our memory lane, during the era of NITEL we
all saw how our communication sector was moribund due to incessant
strike and corruption but today I can call my grand mother in the
village at any time. It was the same Wabba's NLC that recently called Mr
President not to sign into law the CCB/CCT amendment bill passed by the
senate. I want to ask them ,which one is saner,having the CCB/CCT under
the presidency where the presideñt through thè office of the Secretary
to the Governmet of the Federation can use it against his political
opponents at will or have it under the supervision of our 109 senators
where every matter must be debated extensively before the majority
carries the vote?
When Ayubba Wabba
was elected to head a faction of NLC ,political analysts who are
knowledgeable of the happenings in the health sector were aware that he
was placed there for a matter like this FMC Owerri crisis where he would
use NLC machiñery to help his JOHESU colleagues in the health sector.If
Wabba's faction of NLC is truly out to fight corruption,which I
vehemently doubt, let them call for the resignation of Mr Rotimi Amechi
and Dr Ogbonnaya Onuh who one of the embattled judges accused of trying
to bribe him. They should also call for the resignation of the chief of
staff to Mr President, Alhaji Abba Kyari who is also being investigated
for an alleged N500 million MTN fraud. It is an affront to the
sensibilities of Nigerians who read the joint Communique issued by NLC
and TUC where they alleged that the embattled MD was 'suspended' instead
of being sent on an administrative leave . That tells you the caliber
of people that now lead our NLC and TUC.
Wabba's faction
of NLC should also invite the anti-graft agency to investigate their
members who come to work with samples from their private laboratories
and from their partners in crime outside the hospitals. They run the
laboratory tests with hospitals' reagents and machines and put the money
in their pockets. The anti-graft agency should also go to our bood
banks manned by JOHESU members so that they will explain how unused
units of blood procured for patients normally disappear after some time
if nobody comes to claim it. It has to be noted that every patient
billed for caesarean sectîon is as part of the pre-operative
requirements expected to secure at least two units of blood,and at times
these units of blood may not be used ,I want Wabba's NLC to ask his
colleagues how these units of blood develop wings in our blood banks
thereafter . He should also ask his colleagues in the account sections
how they buy and build houses in choicest parts of our cities.
Wabba's NLC will
never tell Nigerians that with PPP no sane entrepreneur that is not
under a spell will ever allow this nonsense that goes on in our public
hospitals to continue. Tell me how an entrepreneur will appoint a JOHESU
member a consultant and pay him/her as such? Tell me how an
entrepreneur will allow his workers in the laboratories to come into the
laboratories with 'foreign' samples? Tell me how a PPP entrepreneur
will allow professionals who spent five years in the universities to
sit down and be counting drugs in our pharmacy units instead of
producing drugs or how professionals will be running tests with
eslf-explanatory strips which my uneducated grand mother can run
unaided,and now they want to be ordained consultants? JOHESU and their
illustrious son, My Ayubba Wabba, know why they want Dr ( Mrs ) Angela
Uwakwem removed at all costs .
They know that
if Dr Uwakwem succeeds in fully implementing PPP in FMC Owerri then
other Chief Medical Directors of our tertiary hospitals will follow suit
and that will be the final burial of JOHESU and crises in our health
sector because no intelligent entrepreneur will either allow the likes
of Mr Ayubba Wabba to leave their primary duties in the hospital where
they receive their salaries to go and stay at NLC secretariat ,or allow
workers to be involved in unionism to the detriment of the patients and
the hospital business. Nigerians should ask Mr Wabba's NLC and JOHESU
why there is no crisis in our private hospitals? While Mr Wabba is
preparing for his protests ,he should remember Ajaero led faction which
is a check to his own NLC .It was the same Ajaero led faction of NLC
that made the Wabba's NLC 2016 fuel subsidy strike uneventful compared
to what we had in 2012.
I hope Mr Wabba
Ayubba will be willing to resign his post and be suspended from the
civil service when a group falsely accuses him of anything tomorrow
because an Igbo adage says that another person's corpse is taken as a
log of wood until one is affected. I am aware that Wabba's NLC is
oblivious of s36(5) of Nigerian constitution( as amended) which states
that : Every person who is charged with a criminal offence shall be
presumed to be innocent until he( she) is proved guilty( by a court of
competent jurisdiction and not by Mr Wabba,his own faction of NLC or his
JOHESU colleagues in the health sector with their operation bring down
all medical doctors ) and s1(3) of same constitution while shedding
more lights on the supremacy of our Nigerian constitution over other
laws,rules( eg Civil Service Rule as erroneously quoted in the NLC
ultimatum),constitutions et cetera has this to say: If any other law is
inconsistent with the provisions of this constitution ,this constitution
shall prevail ,and that other law shall to the extent of the
inconsistency be void.
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