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The Imo state government has slammed an indefinite suspension on a nursing mother, Mrs. Vivian Ottih for sending an open distress call to his kinsman who is an appointee of government, lamenting her condition following the inability of government to pay her salaries in the last three months.
Ottih who is a staff of the Imo Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) was delivered of a baby in April and had been struggling to stay afloat with her salaries for February, March and April still unpaid.
Coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and its attendant difficulties, Ottih said she was passing through terrible times and had through an SOS message she posted on Facebook urged her kinsman from Oguta, Mr. Modestus Nwamkpa, who is also an appointee of the government to convey the plight of IBC workers to the Governor who may not be aware of their predicament.
But on the 8th of May, 2020, the IBC management issued her a query accusing her of sabotaging the government, among other things.
The query was signed by one Mrs. Osuchukwu S.O for the Acting Director General of IBC.
The query read in part: ” I’m also directed to let you know that this attitude caused serious embarrassment to Imo state government thereby ridiculing the government in the eyes of the public with the sole aim of sabotaging the government.”
On the 14th of May , after she had replied the query, the management of IBC through Mrs. Osuchukwu S.O. notified Mrs. Vivian Ottih of the decision of the corporation to suspend her indefinitely adding that her answer to the query was ‘unsatisfactory and unaccptable’.
Not a few persons have condemned the action of the Imo State government through the IBC.
While some have argued that for Ottih to have brought issues of her staff welfare to the public domain was in violation of civil service rule, others maintain that notwithstanding the rules of engagement, the fundamental right to life would supersedes the civil service rules in both the court of public opinion and the court of law.
Mrs. Vivian Ottih is the Chairperson of the Imo State chapter of National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ).
