A letter of gratitude to Gov. Ambode

SIR: I want to sincerely thank Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State for having started to fulfill some of his electoral promises, which he made to the people of the state during his campaign.

Among the electoral promises was his resolve to end the trend of casualization in the State’s Civil Service. Recently, Governor Ambode made good his promise by regularising the employment status of the medical doctors who were engaged some years ago as casuals. Many doctors who benefitted from this gesture of the governor have heaved a sigh of relief having been saved from many years of tortuous wait during the period that they were in that pitiable condition.

The ugly effect of their status if they had remained as casuals would have been that they would stagnate on the same position forever without any growth! These are young and brilliant doctors, who would have wasted away due to frustration, and for no fault of theirs.

Having known Governor Ambode to be a thorough-bred technocrat, who held an enviable position in the State Civil Service and retired meritoriously before he went into politics, I am confident that with his wealth of experience, he will build a very healthy, cordial and enviable working relationship with the state workforce; the workers in return, will continue to support his government to enable him fulfill his electoral promises to the people of Lagos State

But, I wish to respectfully appeal to him to go further steps and kindly look into the plight of many lawyers, most of them in their prime, who were also engaged as casual workers many years ago into the State Civil Service. Some of these lawyers have spent between five and 10 years and have stagnated on the same position that they were engaged! Many of them are very brilliant with bright career prospects if they are given the opportunity to grow in the state employment.

I also recall that some of them were not paid their salaries for the period that they agitated for improvement on their conditions of service.
• Emeka Damian,
Lagos.