Major indication, has emerged that there is imminent administrative bruhaha in the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) over the denial of some Senior staff promotion Examination across the Secretariats, Departments and Agencies (SDAs) if something quickly is not done to arrest the situation.

The brewing trouble, may not be far from the recent promotion excercise held in the FCT in which many staff, were left denied taking part in the examination which would, to afford them promotion, which allegedly was full of ethnic biasness.

In view of the precarious situation, affected staff, mostly in the senior cadre are threatening to blow off the entire system, if their plight is not addressed.

Deputy Directors, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the manner in which they were schemed out during the last promotion examination, showed that the system doesn’t want their career progression but to frustrate them and kill their morale.

It was revealed that those worst hit are Directors and Deputy Directors that have been in acting capacity for a number of years instead of the six month administrative time limit.

Deputy Directors are also up in arms for spending years as DDs. According to them, they are overdue for promotion to Directors, but they are shortchanged by the administration, which their juniors have been promoted to Directors to equal their grade levels without moving further.

According to our sources, the tumult snowballed from 2022, when about seven hundred staff participated in promotion examination organised by the FCT Administration, which some were to be promoted to Directorate cadre but it failed shot of the expectations

Further investigations, uncovered that the result released in December, 2022, indicated the that hundred names were published as those who passed the examination, while only eighty- six out of the number had been given letters of promotion, dashing the hope of others.

The shortchanged staff who spoke in hidden identify, said, “Promotion examination was held last year, we were denied from participating in the examination, for reasons best known to the administration, despite meeting up with the whole criteria, we were left behind.

“Most of us have been Deputy Directors for years. Does it mean that they are better than us? Or we are not part of FCT Administration? Necessary actions must be taken before the situation gets out of hand.

“It is inhuman, frustrating and killing of our morale. It is the expectation of every civil servant to grow to the peak of his/ her profession, we have to be considered before the system is grounded, this is unacceptable," they stated.

In his reaction, the chairman Joint Unions Action Committee (JUAC), FCTA/FCDA, Comrade Matilukuro Oluwakerede, said the current structure of FCT Administration is faulty and has put the whole system in bondage, which made a lot of things to come to play on the issue of promotion.

He noted that the structuring of FCT Administration must be reviewed to accommodate the interest of all staff to avoid the danger lurking in the corner.

According to him, “Like the FCT procurement department has only one director and quite a number of them are ADs and DDs, yes they are qualified but where will you fix them? if you allowed them to go and write promotion examination, where will you fix them? because they will still come back and ask you that, we wrote promotion examination and pass but you don’t want to promote us.

“It is one of the reasons why the Union has been fighting on the restructuring of the FCTA for good, the staff are not been well treated. We are disenfranchised and that is why since 2004, we have been having issues with FCTA structure.

“The former minister, malam Musa Bello was making it look as if he will implement a structure that will make the system function well, but he did not, which is very wrong.

“The law that created FCTA was Order 1 of 2004, but the Order was not properly implemented. The implementation shortchanged civil servants, as a union we agreed that laws are good but no law is perfect, there are shortcomings that call for a review, for long period of time no review, things become obsolete over a long period of time. A lot of things in FCT are illegal but yet they keep pushing them.

“Those that are saying they are deprived of promotion and other things, they are right because it is their right. They are right, the truth is that by the current law that FCTA is operating on people will continue to be disenfranchised.

“Even the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, says FCT should be treated like a state. The meaning of that is, FCT is a state, we are not saying call it state but structure it in such a way that civil servants career progression will be seamless.

“The treasury, currently has one director, which is due for ten Directors, if other Directors, the current Director there supposed to become Chief Executive Director (CED), to pave way for career progression of others and the situation is such that Directors who retire from the FCTA does not apply for permanent secretary Job due to the law that established by the FCTA," he said.

Oluwakerede, said it has not been long that the economic planning department was changed to a secretariat, ” but till now, no structure, no organogram, we are still operating in a lawless manner, FCTA is in bondage. Staff are not well treated our welfare is zero.

“The government is the problem, because of bad structure most staff are shortchanged, and this is causing tension in the system. The matter will soon snowball into what the management will not control. It is a problem, no doubt about it.

“As a labour union that works with facts and figure, what is existing now is what the management is using as a yardstick, that is why they can say, people that are promoted are those that there is space for them.

Oluwakerede, however urged the affected staff to join the union to be full registered members, which according to him, will provide better ground for a serious fight with the Administration in area of staff welfare.

“Some of the persons complaining are not registered members of the union, most of them when they get to assistant director or deputy director they don’t care to be part of the union” he said.

Efforts made to reach Mohammed Sule, the Director Information and Communication in the FCT Administration however, proved abortive as he neither picked his call nor replied text massage as at the time of filing this report. (Daily Sun)

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