Dogara seeks public workers’ input in anti-graft war

SPEAKER of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has asked Nigerian public workers to help the present administration fight corruption in the polity.

He also advised them to ensure that they add value to their work to justify their demands for improved welfare and other packages.

The Speaker said this when he received the executive members of the National Assembly chapter of Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) on Tuesday.

While speaking on demands of the association for better welfare and salary package, the Speaker said every worker deserves wages, but efforts must be made to also create wealth for the country.

He said, “Inculcate discipline, ensure that you imbibe the new ways of doing things. Nigeria must work…it is our responsibility to show leadership in various offices that we hold and to demonstrate to virtually everyone around us that change has come and we are prepared to key into Mr. President’s war against corruption because that is the only thing that will give us a better country.”
“We share your concerns, obviously, with regards to welfare and we have always stated that if we have a buoyant democracy, it will be because the citizens are well catered for and we sincerely believe that workers who are giving their best for the advancement of their country and our democracy should be well catered for.

However, we should not forget the reason why we are here. Corruption has been the bane of leadership in this country and it has almost pulled us to the ground and apart from that, we ran into a situation where as a people we are not engaged in creating wealth and any society or any nation that doesn’t have citizens devoted to creating wealth will definitely run into serious problems. So the main challenge before us now is how do we generate value that we can put on the table before claiming value? Once there is nothing on the table, there is practically nothing we can do.

“We should know we run a monolithic economy, we depend solely on almost only one item of revenue, which is oil and we all know the situation, the global problem associated with the price of that commodity. It therefore means that government must adopt belt-tightening measures. Even though the issue of your welfare doesn’t concern us, we are concerned certainly, but it really is not in our hands.”