Information has emerged that the enforcement of an oath of secrecy on the employees of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) by its National Working Committee (NWC) to stem the unauthorized flow and disclosure of information was triggered by rumblings among workers at the party’s Wadata Plaza Head Office over their unpaid allowances.
party’s head office over their unpaid allowances.
A source who is also a National Executive Committee (NEC) member confided in this correspondent that the party “frowned at the way workers complained to their benefactors outside the party office”.
According to him, issues of staff welfare were internal matters that required “only internal efforts”.
He noted: “For a long time, the national chairman has been complaining about how information concerning our party get to the public too quickly as we can imagine.
“It is a thing we have been managing to control all these days but I think, whether rightly or wrongly, I am not saying the report about oath of secrecy is correct, but if it happened, I don’t think it is bad.
“For instance, at one of our informal deliberations, a senior member — in fact a leader of the party — called the national chairman that some staff of the party had been grumbling over their unpaid housing allowances.
“You can imagine what such a situation would look like; it means there is nothing happening within the party that does not get to the public, including the opposition.”
A staff member of the Finance and Administration Directorate of the PDP also confirmed that workers’ allowances for 2012 were yet to be paid.
The female worker placed the least of such allowances at N550, 000.
“The truth is that some persons actually complained; I am not one of them, but I know some went to a BoT leader to report that our allowances have not been paid for the last year.”
However, all attempts to get the name of the “BoT leader” from her was unsuccessful even as she declined to give the exact sum of her own entitlement.
She said, “I cannot tell you the name of the person; you know I did not go with those who went to complain; you shouldn’t even expect me to tell you what I am expected to get as housing allowance; all I know is that the least person is entitled to get N550,000 minimum.”
Rumblings at the PDP head office reached a height recently when a senior staff of the Administration department issued a statement to thank the Tukur-led NWC for “taking care of staff welfare”.
But the statement was hurriedly withdrawn a few minutes later by the official when some disenchanted staff members threatened to issue a counter-statement to debunk the one issued by their boss.