Fides Media Living the Faith
. . . C Don Reacts to Alleged Sack Threat
By Jude Atupulazi
Contrary to newspaper reports about a palpable tension among appointees of Anambra State Governor, Willie Obiano, over a looming cabinet shake up that will affect non-performing appointees, the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Mr C Don Adinuba, says there is no truth in such reports, Jude Atupulazi writes.
Within last week, the news media had been awash with a purported move by the state government to lay off many aides to Governor Willie Obiano in order to reduce the cost of governance.
The reports came in the wake of a statement attributed to the governor in a message to mark the first anniversary of his government’s second term in office in which he asked his aides to perform optimally this time or be sacked.
One of the newspaper reports, quoting a government source, stated that some of the appointments were made for political expediency and that government could not continue operating with such a huge retinue of aides.
The report also alleged that the governor was not happy with the below par performance of some of the appointees and was therefore considering giving them the sack.
But speaking to Fiders, the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, C Don Adinuba, debunked the reports, describing them as untrue.
While conceding that those he called laggards could not have a place in the last three years of the Anambra State administration, Adinuba however said that tweaking the administration was part of the culture of continuous improvement.
In his words, ‘However, there are not up to 415 laggards in the Obiano administration. The report in a section of the media that as many as 415 political appointees in Anambra State “have been penciled down for sack” and that the decision has caused panic in the administration is not credible. There is no panic in the administration or anywhere in the state.’
He said that Governor Willie Obiano had always made it clear to all and sundry that he had a date with history, all the more so since ‘his historic reelection on November 17, 2017, when the people of Anambra State in each of the 21 local government areas of the state gave him an unprecedented mandate. Far from being carried away by the sweeping victory, he announced that he would use the second term to work more vigorously for ndi Anambra.’
Adinuba therefore said the pledge would seem to stand in contradistinction to the practice in Nigeria where many public officers rested on their laurels in their second tenure.
‘Chief Obiano, as part of what the strategic effort to deliver superior results to the people, assembled in his second term an administration which is second to none in the country, considering the quality of the men and women he appointed. Yet, he has never failed to point out that anytime each person is found wanting, he or she will have to be separated from the administration,’ Adinuba pointed out, noting that the governor wanted only those who shared his vision for the state and who were equally committed to its rapid development to continue to work with him in the last three years of the administration which the governor considered critical.
‘Chief Obiano is a great believer in the principle of continuous improvement, and he has been practicing it to the admiration of the general public,’ Adinuba concluded