Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has sworn-in the new Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Sir George Eche, who replaces Sir Jude Ejiogu, who was dropped penultimate week by the governor. Eche was drafted from the state civil service.
Speaking at the event, Okorocha used the opportunity to also call on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Imo State University chapter to call off the strike action embarked upon by the lecturers of the university, expressing shock that the lecturers would go on strike in the second week of March, over February salary.
His words: “It is shocking that ASUU in IMSU told lecturers to go on strike in the second week of March because of February salary, and when they had been paid full salary for the month of January. This is shocking. It is not acceptable to the state government. ASUU in IMSU should call off the strike without further delay because it is by all standards unacceptable and unjustifiable.”
The governor continued: “We shall continue to keep faith with the workers welfare. If the workers in the state did not go on strike over two months’ salary owed to them, we would have continued to go out of our way to pay them full. But they went on strike over two months’ salary and we then agreed with labour that they should take 70 per cent of the total income of the state to pay salaries and pensions, while the government takes only 30 per cent for capital expenditure. And now they have seen the truth of what we have been telling them about the finances of the state.”
