By Amos Igbebe, Asaba
The disagreement between lawmakers at the Delta State House of Assembly and civil servants at the assembly over welfare matters had deepened as efforts by the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Baba Alkali Usman, to broker truce were unsuccessful.
The CP’s efforts at brokering peace almost resulted in physical brawl between lawmakers led by the Speaker of the House, Peter Onwusanya, and the state Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), David Ofoeyeno, following hot exchange of words.
Ofoeyeno, who was newly elected as Chairman of state NLC, had led the assembly workers under the aegis of Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) to the residences of the lawmakers at the Legislative Quarters, Asaba, for an audience with the Speaker.
The workers had earlier lock up the gates to Assembly Complex to enforce its work to rule action in protest over alleged failure on the part of the assembly leadership to implement the terms of the January 19 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both parties.
But after waiting at the gate for hours without the Speaker appearing to address the issues, the CP arrived and in a bid to mediate invited some delegates of the union into the compound for the audience.
As the Speaker approached the workers’ representatives led by Ofoeyeno, the NLC Chairman told him that “we are here to see you.”
The Speaker replied saying that “we scheduled a meeting for 10am today (yesterday) at the office. I am surprised at your action now. We can’t talk here, let us go to the office.”
Ofoeyeno insisted that the talk must hold immediately, pointing out that the gates which the workers had locked-up have been forcefully opened, adding “right now, we are your visitors, you have to receive us.”
However, Onwusanya who was already dressed officially, turned down the request, maintaining that the meeting must hold at the office, while working away from the NLC chairman.
As if he was issuing directive to his subordinate, the NLC chairman told the Speaker: No, Mr. Speaker, come back here.”
This infuriated Mr. Onwusanya who shouted at Ofoeyeno, saying: “you are stupid, who are you?”
This led to hot exchange of words from loyalists of both stakeholders which was almost resulting into fisticuffs until the Police Commissioner intervened again to calm frayed nerves.
However, the meeting ending abruptly as the NLC boss walked outside the gate to meet other PASAN members who were decked in red T-shirts and armed with placards of various inscriptions.
Inscriptions on some of the placards read: ‘commission members must go,’ ‘honour the MoU,’ ‘Mr. Speaker be sensitive to staff welfare,’ ‘what do you do with the monthly allocation to the House,’ ‘pay bereaved families their claims,’ ‘pay staff claims of over 10 years,’ among others.
Meanwhile, the Speaker had on Monday told journalists that the House has fulfilled all the terms of the January 19 MoU, and noted that the latest grievances of the workers were unknown, insisting that their action of locking the gates amounted to labour intimidation.
