A member of the Senior Staff Association of PHCN, Owen Anyanwu, on Friday said that the group’s grouse with the Federal Government is based on the unlawful disengagement of 271 workers, during the Abacha regime.
Our concerns are founded on the “disengagement of 271 workers sacked during the tail end of the Abacha regime,” he said on Sunrise Daily, adding that, “they were sacked without benefits and clear recourse to the rules and regulations governing the employment of the state workers.”
Asked why the Goodluck administration has to bear the brunt of the said injustice, Mr Anyanwu said “Management is a continuum. Since that issue has not been resolved, we keep on pushing it from one regime to the other.
Since this is a democratic setting, we asked the government to look into it.
However, the Jonathan led government is not the first democratic government since the Abacha regime. To this, Mr Anyanwu explained the reason for the association’s actions stating that a legal battle to ensure vindication took 13 years.
“We went to court actually and that took about 13 years,” he said adding that “we secured victory at the Federal High Court in Lagos, victory at the Federal Court Of Appeal in Lagos, victory at Minna High Court, victory at Federal Court of Appeal in Abuja, victory at Federal High Court in Kaduna.”
He added that the judges confirmed that the disengagement wasn’t done through the normal process and rendered it null and void noting that the situation was compounded by internal rancor.
The PHCN association has been having regular communication with the affected workers
The Labour Minister, Emeka Wogu, has however told the association that “something will be done,” but Mr Ayanwu raised concerns that the official handover of the power company to private investors would bring their case to a dead-end.