Edo workers trickle to offices
Activities in the public sector and the public in
general in Edo State got to a slow start on Monday. This follows the
cancellation of the public holiday earlier declared on Saturday by the
state government for Monday, to enable voters exercise their franchise
in the National Assembly election.
Following the postponement from Saturday 2nd to
Monday 4th April by the chairman of the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC), Attahiru Jega, over lack of electoral materials, the
state government had declared Monday a holiday.
A further announcement by Mr. Jega on Sunday
afternoon after a meeting with leaders of the various political parties
postponing the elections again to Saturday, 9th April, prompted the Edo
State government to cancel the public holiday it had earlier announced.
Workers in the state ministries and parastatals,
however, resumed late for duty on the pretext that the holiday was
still in force.
As at 10am, only a few people had arrived their duty
posts in the ministries visited, just as it was also observed that the
roads were devoid of the usual heavy human and vehicular traffic
associated with Monday mornings in Benin City.
A worker at the State Secretariat Building on Sapele
Road, who did not want his name in print, said that he got to his duty
post at about 11am. He told NEXT: “I am not aware that the public
holiday announcement has been reversed. There was no electricity in my
area last night so I could not listen to news.”
He, however, said that he got wind of the
cancellation of the holiday from a colleague who had called him on
phone to inquire if he was in good health when he failed to show up at
the office at the resumption hour.
But it was a case of different strokes for different
folks in the case of workers in the private sector, as some of them who
got to the office late heaped the blame over the mix up at the door
step of the Edo State government.
They were unanimous in saying that the state
government should have waited for the federal government to declare a
public holiday should the election be held on a Monday.
On the rescheduled time table for the April general
elections, respondents from both the public and private sectors
welcomed the development.
They expressed their willingness to participate in
the polls in order to effect change in the nation’s leadership for
all-round development of the country.
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