EXPOSED: Wike’s plan to eject civil servants from government accommodation

“With 22 months to the end of its lifespan, the Wike administration has revived its plan to eject civil servants from government buildings and quarters in the Government Reserved Areas (GRAs) to pave way to sharing those buildings amongst the administration’s top politicians”, said Senibo Chris Finebone, the Convener, Peoples Rights Protection Initiative. Mr. Finebone who in a statement circulated to journalists today revealed that, “what many had long suspected became reality when last week the government through the Head of Service, Mr. Godwin Rufus summoned top civil servants and verbally handed down the directive for those occupying government quarters in the reserved areas to prepare to quit such quarters. Fearing that the plot will receive harsh response by the civil servants and the public, Mr. Rufus decided to hand down the directive verbally instead of doing so through the usual government memo.”

It would be recalled that about two years ago, the Wike government had activated the process of quitting civil servants from government quarters in the GRAs but backed down in the face of massive resistance from the civil servants and the public. It is believed that the present attempt is expected to be prosecuted to its logical conclusion since the politicians have become desperate to share those properties as the administration winds down in office. According to him, “Another angle to the saga is that the re-allocation of those buildings are to take certain predetermined ethnic line in view of the raging argument of the true ownership of Port Harcourt. It is rumoured that Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) will be hurriedly issued to their new owners who have already been shortlisted to reflect the preferred ethnic group.” “At this point, the reasonable thing to do is for the civil servants presently occupying such property to resist the directive and the attempt to eject them with every opportunity availed by law. Such insidious apartheid style ejections in this 21^st Century must be resisted by the occupiers” Finebone declared.