Irate workers lock out women affairs minister

From Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Workers at the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, yesterday, locked out the minister, Imaan Suleiman-Ibrahim, over prolonged neglect of the workers amidst other grievances.

The workers, in their numbers, blocked the entrance gates of the Ministry located at Central Area, Abuja, chanting solidarity songs and also demanding the sack of the Minister.

The workers stated that the protest was the last option because they had made several efforts to meet with the minister to address the listed issues, but that has not happened.

“The Minister was deployed to the Ministry in October last year, and since then, she has not had any meeting with the workers nor the unions. After several efforts, she fixed a meeting with the unions and staff on Wednesday, and we were glad. Every staff member, including the permanent secretary and all the directors were seated since morning waiting for the minister.

“We waited for the minister for about four hours because we were told she was returning from a trip. Surprisingly, she snubbed us when she arrived. She never said ‘hello’ to us nor even apologised for keeping us waiting for several hours. Rather, she gave us silent treatment and left for her office. We waited patiently for about an hour for her to come down, but she never did. That made us express our grievances,”  a staff member said.

One of the union leaders, Alake Success, told journalists that the Minister is someone who does not care for the staff. “In fact, the immediate-past Minister, Uju Ohanenye, is far better than her. In our ministry, there are no working tools, statutory welfare, training, and several others.

“We don’t see the usefulness of the overhead allocation to the Ministry. The Minister and her over 25 aides use the money. We use our personal funds to work for the Ministry. Cleaners are no longer in the Ministry. We clean the toilets ourselves, we buy stationery ourselves.

“We have met with the Permanent Secretary on this matter, and she confirmed that she has made several efforts but no positive response from the Minister. We have no option but to register our discontent through the peaceful protests.”

They demanded the removal of the Minister and possibly deployed her to another Ministry other than the women affairs Ministry.

Meanwhile, as at press time, the gates of the Ministry were locked, and the Minister was yet to address the aggrieved workers nor respond to the allegations.