The National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, South-East zone has threatened to direct workers of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC, to embark on industrial action if the alleged “dehumanizing and slave treatment” being meted out to the workers by the management was not stopped forthwith.
The union said no fewer than 15 senior managers and storekeepers in Onitsha Business unit of the EEDC had been arrested and now cooling their heels at Onitsha Police Area Command over allegation of “sharp practices in electricity billing and metering in Anambra State.”
Senior Assistant General Secretary of the union, Comrade Cyprian Ndubuisi Akoh, disclosed this while briefing newsmen at the end of the meeting convened in Enugu by NUEE leadership to review the problems confronting its members in the zone.
“We, therefore, call upon the relevant authorities including the EEDC Management to halt this management recklessness and effect the release of all those detained. Failure to do so, the union should not be blamed if our members withdraw their services,” Akoh said.
According to him, the arrests and long detention of the electricity workers was at the instance of the Chairman of the EEDC Board of Directors, Sir Emeka Offor “on the ground that he has been complaining of revenue droppings while he was pumping money into the electricity business.’
He said that the issue of Sir Emeka Offor’s claim of pumping money in the business should be left for Nigerian consumers in the East to assess and confirm “because we are yet to see the positive dividends of the sector privatization.”
Akoh said: “We are yet to see where new transformers are brought into the network, instead old transformers that go out of service or vandalized remain unattended to for months except the host communities task themselves or their wealthy sons come to their rescue.
“The above notwithstanding, this union will never support acts of wrongdoings or illegalities in the field. What we frown at is the unscrupulous nature of the arrest and detention for upwards of two weeks and neither family members nor co-staff allowed to see them and know the reason for the arrest and detention. This is inhuman and slavish. This act of victimization and intimidation should stop forthwith.”
The NUEE Senior Assistant General Secretary, however, advised the EEDC management to establish an internal administrative machinery to investigate and establish fact of any given allegation and take adequate disciplinary action where the staff involved was found guilty.
“A situation where staff is arrested, detained and treated like a common criminal or armed bandit is nothing but a display of wickedness, highhandedness, despotism, tyranny and dictatorsh8ip in a country we are now celebrating democracy.
“The Inspector General of Police has made it known to Nigerians that nobody should be detained beyond 48 hours except on cases of armed robbery or murder, yet these staff members arrested have been detained for upwards of two weeks. Perhaps the Police is waiting for the orders of Sir Emeka Offor to release them,” Akoh further lamented.
He pointed out that production would nosedive while initiative would be killed whenever staff of an organization was intimidated and cowed to work under fear of the unknown.
“EEDC is an organization which (allegedly) neglects labour union in the company, treat staff with reckless impunity and government that should serve as a regulator through the instrumentality of Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity turns a blind eye there is bound to be industrial disharmony”, the NUEE official said.
He further listed the scenarios of arrest and detention of the electricity workers in the zone to include, the detention and handcuffing for two weeks of a staff of Ogbaru Business unit, the two weeks detention of another staff for giving out PVC cable to a customer who paid his bills and requested for the PVC cable for him to be reconnected and the arrest of a staff at Oraifite for no offence of his “because an electrician was seen in his network on a weekend when he was away.
“A responsible company operatives with conditions of service which spell out administrative procedures in handling staff wrongdoings with appropriate sanctions, while proven cases of fraud or criminal tendencies are reported to the law enforcement agencies for prosecution. As a union, we call for civilized and institutionalized administrative method of handling wrongdoings in an organization. The law enforcement agencies should be the last resort”.
The union, however, warned that it would not continue to sit back and watch EEDC “treat our members like common criminals or slaves serving in a strange land.”
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