Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State

By Francis Sadhere

The Nigerian Union of Journalists, Warri Correspondents Chapel  has called on Governor Ifeanyi Okowa-led government to wake up to its responsibility and stop passing buck when the responsibility to take care of citizens’ welfare actually stopped at the state Governor’s deck.

The union in in a statement by its Chairman and Secretary, Akpokona Omafuare and Joe Ogbodu, commiserate with the Delta State Chapter of Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT as well as the state chapter of All Nigeria Conference of Principals of Secondary Schools over the death of four of their members.

The union said it received with rude shock the tragic death of the three Secondary School Principals and one Vice Principal who lost their lives in a ghastly motor accident on Friday on their way to honour invitation by Honourable Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Mr Chinedu Ebie in Kwale geared toward resolving the industrial action by the NUT.

While expressing deep condolences to the teachers’ families, NUT, ANCOPSS, and students of schools where the deceased had served before their untimely death, “the Union make bold to say that the state government was callous in handling the issues of payment of salaries and arrears of the workers which eventually led to this avoidable death.”

The statement said that if the state government had not foreclose the immediate negotiation with the protesting teachers, the death would possibly not have occurred painfully the way it did.

The statement says, “The threat position taken by the government was an awkward and outdated manner of resolving labour dispute by a government which purported to give prosperity to all Deltans.”