Don’t play politics with civil servants, Kogi youths tell Senate

The National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), Kogi chapter, on Thursday accused the Senate of playing politics with the fate of unpaid civil servants in the state.

A statement by the NYCN Chairman, Mr Oladele Nihi on Thursday in Lokoja, said the council was deeply concerned over the purported donation of 1, 260 bags of rice to civil servants in Kogi.

Nihi wondered why the Senate did not find it appropriate to make similar donations to civil servants nationwide owed salaries by state governments.
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“We see these actions and reactions of the senators as unguided and a desperate move to toil with the collective sensibility of the good people of Kogi and not only the civil servants.

“It is being orchestrated by primordial instincts to paint Kogi in the dark light for cheap and selfish political gains. It is an insult on us.

“Kogi might be feeling the brunt of the economic crisis that is currently bedevilling the whole country, but that does not mean a group of people with inordinate ambition should sit in Abuja and paint Kogi like a Somalia of some sort,’’ Nihi said.

He said that if the intentions of the Senators were genuine, they would have made the donation to all the 9,000 civil servants in the state and not the 1,620 bags they were reported to have donated.

“One would expect that the Senate which is the highest law making body in the country be more decorous and fair in attending to such matters as sensitive as this.

“We expect the distinguished senators to be non partisan and fair by sending delegation to verify the true state of things before playing to the gallery,’’ he added.

Nihi argued that those trying to mock Kogi civil servants “from their comfort zone in Abuja, are doing so to simply earn wings of egocentric and self-absorbed motives or acting a script.”

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Sen. Dino Melaye on Wednesday told journalists at the end of plenary, that 40 senators had donated 1,260 bags of rice and other relief materials to ease the sufferings of Kogi workers.