NOT less than 1,400 members of the Association of Senior Civil Servant of Nigeria (ASCSN) have benefited from Local and International trainings on union operations and activities.

According to ASCSN, the training was put together by the current executive of the association led by its President, Bobboi Bala Kaigama as part measures to equip members intellectually.
Speaking recently during the association’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Kaduna, Kaduna State, Kaigama said: “ I will like to announce to you that over 1400 members of our Union had been sponsored for local and international training since I came on board”.

He added: “This is in fulfillment of the core mandate of the current leadership of our great Union to train and retrain our members. I believe very strongly that the training programmes have had very positive impact on productivity and the way and manner beneficiaries have been carrying out their assignments in their respective workplaces.

“I want to assure you that the current administration is committed to further training and retraining of our members to actualise our collective goals and aspirations. The programme has become part of us and we will not abandon it. With your unflinching support, we shall continue to make meaningful impact as far as the education and training of our members is concerned.

“ I want to assure you all that we will continue to keep the banner of the association afloat and also do our utmost best to maximize the collective wisdom of members in moving the Union to the next level. What I need from you is absolute loyalty and support so that together we can sustain the integrity, transparency, and progressive credentials that have made this Association first among equals in the comity of trade unions in the country”, Kaigama said.

Speaking on other welfare issues concerning workers, he urged government to consider the upward review of salaries, saying the current economic realities are at variance with the present wages being paid workers in the country.

According to him, there is need for government to negotiate with the various labour bodies with a view to creating a new salary regime in the country.

This, he said will bring about improvement in the quality of lives of workers, while bridging the salary gap between the core civil service and other sub sector of the federal public service.

Alleging illegal recruitment in the public service, the union called on government to review the powers of the federal civil service commission saying that it has destroyed the recruitment process into the service on “the flimsy excuse of acting on the directive from higher quarters to grant waivers to some states. Our take is that the Commission cannot continue to hide under the guise of spurious waiver for some disadvantaged states to import and impose unqualified and incompetent persons into the Federal Public Service over and above qualified serving officers. Cases abound in the service of some officers who were appointed to positions without the requisite qualifications as provided for in the Scheme of Service, Federal Civil Service Commission Guidelines on Appointment, Promotion and Discipline, Public Service Rules, and Establishment Circulars.”

Graduates with eight to twelve years post graduation experience are being appointed as Directors. It is as bad as that. We have made our case to the Commission on this vexed issue and we are still waiting for the body to reverse all illegal recruitments made in the past five years in order to return sanity into the system. We make bold to say that if the reversal is not effected as being demanded, the association will have no alternative than to adopt other trade union measures to seek redress”.
Dwelling on the high unemployment rate in the country, the union urged the government to revitalize the country’s agriculture sector.

“Unemployment is one of the critical challenges facing Nigeria in the 21st Century. The unemployment rate in the country has now increased to 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2015 from 6.40 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 according to data received from the National Bureau of Statistics. As we speak, over 64 million able-bodied youth are now roaming the streets without any means of livelihood. Meanwhile, each year, our universities and other tertiary institutions keep turning out thousands of fresh graduates into the already saturated labour market.