Richard Elesho/ Lokoja
The Deputy Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, Hon. Aliyu Akuh has called on the state Governor, Alh. Yahaya Bello to thread softly and ensure that the rule of law prevails in the nearly one year old Staff screening and verification exercise in the state. Akuh made the call in Lokoja during an interaction with some journalists.
He noted that the current economic recession ravaging the country has created enough problems for families and that what should be paramount in the mind of leaders at all levels should be how to create parliatives and not to enforce policies that can further pauperise and traumatise an already bewildered populace.
“The government needs to be more human and realistic. How can we have as many as three or more results from one screening exercise? What I mean is that you said you have finished and bring out result. Tomorrow again some people will come. Today someone may be in the cleared list, tomorrow he may find himself in the uncleared list. These are serious confusions. We have also seen people being punished for easily correctable offenses like lack of BVN and cases of premature retirement. Those of us in the House are grassroots people. People come to us for complaints. Sometimes we even follow them to the screening committee to identify them. But at the end of the day, they are not cleared. We are calling on the government to look at the complaints more critically so that people are not unjustly thrown into the labour market.” Akuh advised.
The Deputy Speaker opined that the current economic recession has brought much suffering and hardship in the land and that government should deliberately pursue policies that will reduce the suffering. “in Nigeria of today, people are suffering a lot and we should not unnecessarily send them into the labour market. That may create more problems for the society.”
While speaking on the activities of the House of Assembly, he noted that the lawmakers are united and forward looking. “The House is vibrant and determined to be on the side of the people that elected us. We lost some grounds to infighting in the past. But thank God we have put that behind us and we are focused on making laws for the good and general welfare of the people..”
On the emergence of a minority APC member as Speaker of the PDP dominated Assembly, he pointed out that a leader must always keep and see the bigger picture which will sometimes involve making sacrifices. He admitted that under normal circumstances, it would have been an aberration for the minority to produce the Speaker, but that in the public interest diplomacy must be allowed to thrive.
“Probably history is being written now in our state. Changes are taking place everywhere now. Perhaps that is one aspect of change that has started in our state. May be Kogi will now go inti history where minority is the Speaker of the majority. Kogi has set that record. Under normal circumstances,that is not suppose to be. But when there is a give and take and the interests of millions of people are involved, then you have to ignore personal interests.” Akuh explained.