PRESIDENT TINUBU CONGRATULATES PROFESSOR IJEOMA UCHEGBU ON HER ELECTION AS CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE PRESIDENT
STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE
President Bola Tinubu congratulates Nigerian-born Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience and top-flight researcher, Ijeoma Uchegbu, on her election as President of Wolfson College, one of the 31 colleges of the University of Cambridge.
Professor Uchegbu, renowned for her innovative work in nanoparticle drug delivery, is currently a Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London (UCL).
President Tinubu celebrates the outstanding accomplishment and commends Professor Uchegbu for being an excellent ambassador for the country and for her relentless efforts to advance the frontiers of pharmaceutical science.
The President applauds Professor Uchegbu as epitomizing the ingenuity, brilliance, and hard work that are consistently synonymous with the great Nigerian people both at home and abroad.
While wishing the Nigerian-born Professor more success as she takes on this important role, President Tinubu assures Nigerians in the Diaspora that his administration remains committed to building a robust interface mechanism that harnesses ideas, promotes investment opportunities, and strengthens bonds, in line with his ‘4D Foreign Policy’.
Chief Ajuri Ngelale
Special Adviser to the President
(Media & Publicity)
December 17, 2023
PRESS STATEMENT
SACK OF 450 LAGOS STATE WATER CORPORATION WORKERS IS ANTI-PEOPLE
CDWR DEMANDS THE RECALL OF ALL SACKED WORKERS AND FULL INTEGRATION INTO LAGOS CIVIL SERVICE EMPLOYMENT
The sack of 450 Lagos State Water Corporation workers on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, in a period of economic crisis is insensitive and anti-workers. This mass sack will not only throw the affected workers into more poverty but also deepen the socio-economic problems they already face.
Campaign for Democratic and Workers Rights (CDWR) condemns the mass sack and demands the reinstatement of the 450 workers to full employment with all rights and benefits accruable to regularized workers in the civil service. CDWR also calls the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporation Civil Service and Recreational Service Employees (AUPCTRE) to engage the Lagos State Government as a means of demanding the reinstatement of the sacked workers and if need be employ mass actions including strike and protests
According to a report in the Punch newspaper published on Friday, December 8, 2023, many of the sacked workers had worked several years, including up to ten years in service. In the same report, the Public Relations Officer of the Corporation Kehinde Fashola claimed that some of the workers breached the contract of agreement by staying in employment beyond 2 years. The reason put forward by the Lagos State Government is as pedestrian as it is lame. Even if the contract states a duration, the reality is that the corporation needs more workers than it presently has, and that is indeed why the workers were hitherto allowed to stay beyond two years albeit as casuals. According to one of the staff who spoke to the Punch newspaper, “We do not have enough staff. As big as this place is, only one person is left to clean it. There were many of us at the maintenance units before, but now there are just three of us left.” Also importantly, it is rather unfortunate that the Lagos State Government criminally operate the same exploitative contract employment system that has pervaded the private sector. Besides, the state government brazenly violated labour laws and the rights of the affected workers by not regularizing their employment but choosing to keep them as casuals.
Given the importance of water in society and the gross failure of the Lagos State government to deliver clean water to Lagosians, the government ought to invest massively in the corporation to expand capacity, employ more workers, and deliver potable water to more people on a mass scale. Rather than do this, the government is carrying out mass sacking under the guise of restructuring. It is the same Lagos State government that spends billions of Naira to buy expensive cars for a few privileged government officials but cannot invest in social services that will create jobs and provide clean water.
The reality is that the Lagos State Government and the self-serving ruling elite do not prioritize the needs of the people, the same government is hell-bent on privatizing the water corporation (selling it to cronies at rock-bottom price). So, as far as we are concerned the mass sack, which will be likely consolidated in future, is in preparation for the eventual privatization agenda. We call on working people, labour and pro-masses organizations in Lagos to reject the planned privatization of the water corporation and demand massive investment in the corporation as a means to rejuvenate it and at the same time expand its capacity to service more areas and Lagosians with clean water.
SIGNED:
Comrade Rufus Olusesan Comrade Chinedu Bosah
National Chairperson National Publicity Secretary
