WHY SETRACO NIGERIA LIMITED AND THE DELTA STATE GOVERNMENT SHOULD SACK MR GBA JEFF EDUMOGIREN AS THE COMMUNITY LIASION OFFICER(CLO) ON THE AYAKOROMO BRIDGE PROJECT
BY EKANPOU ENEWARIDIDEKE
1. THE whole world knows that God, the gods and all the constructive forces of creation will not deny that Ayakoromo blood flows freely in all my veins. What this signals is that nobody can be more ‘Ayakoromotic’ than Ekanpou the village boy who has the licence to bark correctionally like the underwater African bony tongue(akeou fish) when invasive dirt dares its abode.As a bona fide indigene of Ayakoromo town in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State I know that Ayakoromo bridge construction is a project embarked upon by the Delta State Government since 2013.Zerock Construction Nigeria Limited was the construction company handling the bridge until this 2023 when it was re-awarded to Setraco Nigeria Limited by Governor Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa. Mr Gba Jeff Edumogiren is the Community Liasion Officer (CLO) of the Ayakoromo bridge project who took over from late Mr Backman Tamani when he died in 2016.
With the take-over of the Ayakoromo bridge project by SETRACO, it is a tacit understanding that the company will automatically continue the project with the existing staff from Ayakoromo community since the company has inherited the project from Zerock Construction Nigeria Limited.Rather than continue with the security and other existing staff famed for dedication to duty, Mr Jeff Edumogiren(the clo) has brainwashed and misled the Setraco company to relieve the existing staff of their jobs in preference for strange new workers now engaged.
On the teleguided misinformation and vindictiveness of Mr Jeff Edumogiren the CLO who had functioned as CLO on the Ayakoromo bridge project from 2016 till now, two new security men were recently employed secretly by SETRACO on the bridge project and this is contrary to the unwritten MOU between the company and the community workers.This is a very atrocious development whimsically and vindictively teleguided by Mr Jeff Edumogiren who has a secret plot to render the existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge project jobless for a reason whimsically known to him.
2. For the purpose of equity and fairness in line with the existing memorandum of understanding between the company and the community workers on the Ayakoromo bridge project, Setraco Nigeria Limited should immediately shelve and stop the vindictive plot masterminded by the CLO, Mr Jeff Edumogiren, to disengage the existing staff and engage his cronies, brothers and sisters as the new workers.This move by the CLO is an echoe of nepotism and vindictiveness and the company must not allow itself to be brainwashed, cajoled and misled by Mr Jeff Edumogiren on this matter.The Delta State Government should swiftly intervene and call Setraco and the current vindictive CLO to order before Mr Jeff Edumogiren’s plot to render families jobless becomes an irreversible concrete development
3. The current alliance between Setraco and Mr Jeff Edumogiren the CLO on the issue of disengagement of existing staff is a questionable one whose wings of flight must be clipped by the higher administrative echelon of the Setraco company and the Delta State Government of His Excellency Rt.Hon. Sheriff Francis Oborevwori by calling Setraco and the CLO to order with respect to the plot to disengage the existing workers on the Ayakoromo bridge project.The existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge must not be deprived of the dividends of working for Governor Sheriff Oborevwori in the last governorship election.
4. The take-over and continuation of the Ayakoromo bridge by SETRACO should ideally include the existing structures and the existing staff.It would be an unpardonable aberration for Mr Jeff Edumogiren to teleguide, misdirect, misguide and indoctrinate Setraco towards the disengagement of existing staff.The ultimate goal of Setraco should be to get productive result from the staff and the existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge have always demonstrated the capacity for productive result right from inception.
5. The plot to disengage existing staff must have been created by the CLO in the mind of SETRACO as he appears to be an expert on employment policy-creation to the company as an unsolicited additional task; if this were not the so, Mr Jeff Edumogiren the CLO should have been the vociferous key in the advocacy against any plot to disengage existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge.By the CLO’S questionable acquiescence, plot and non-advocacy for the interests of the existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge project, Mr Jeff Edumogiren should equally be relieved of his ‘CLOSHIP’ because he is also an old existing staff.
6. Let the general public know that since Mr Jeff Edumogiren the CLO as the unsolicited self-appointed employment policy-creation expert has become an advocate of the philosophy that the existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge project should be disengaged for new workers to be engaged, the CLO should also be ready to be disengaged by Setraco and the Delta State Government because he is also an old existing CLO. What is good for the iguana should also be good for the alligator.If the existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge merit disengagement, Mr Jeff Edumogiren merits disengagement twenty times over because they are all clams that inhabit or hug the riverbed of Ayakoromo River.The most morally and legally repellent development is to disengage existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge and retain Mr Jeff Edumogiren as the CLO.
7. MY good-intentioned passionate appeal to SETRACO and the Delta State Government is to re-orientate Mr Jeff Edumogiren to the fact that it is procedurally, morally, religiously, traditionally and legally reprehensible of him as a CLO to ever conceive of disengagement of the existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State, not to talk of actually disengaging and secretly engaging two new security workers.
Let Mr Jeff Edumogiren be constantly awakened that his ‘CLOSHIP’ is to protect the interests of the community workers, not to jeopardise their interests and render them jobless.Let Mr Jeff Edumogiren be both sensitised and conscientised that he and the existing workers on the Ayakoromo bridge are answerable to the same query, fate and summons if there is any basis for that because they are all existing old staff entitled to either COME or GO on the job, and that a CLO in any organisation must not be animated by vindictiveness bottled against some persons in the performance of his responsibilities.Mr Jeff Edumogiren must live above vindictive mindset in the engagement of his task as a CLO on the Ayakoromo bridge project
8. The strongly held position here channelled to Setraco and the Delta State Government is that if Mr Jeff Edumogiren cannot be re-orientate d to cancel and reverse his vindictive disengagement plot targeted at the existing staff on the Ayakoromo bridge, he should be relieved of his CLOSHIP as an avenue for a new CLO to emerge – a new CLO who can always protect and advocate for the interests of the workers on the Ayakoromo bridge who worked devotedly for Governor Sheriff Oborevwori in the last Delta State Governorship election.Can anything be more ridiculous than this situation where Mr Jeff Edumogiren is clandestinely at work to render jobless people who worked devotedly for PDP in 2023 Delta State Governorship Election in ward seven in Burutu Local Government Area?
ENEWARIDIDEKE, an award-winning writer from Ayakoromo town in Delta State whose book THE ROAD TO KEN SARO-WIWA won the Isidore Okpewho Prize for Literature in 2004
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