By Felix Ogbonna

Aba—Non-indigenous workers disengaged from Abia State Civil Service have petitioned the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), over their fate.

In October, 2012, Abia State government disengaged over 4, 000 non-indigenes working in the state’s civil service without any monetary compensation.

In a petition addressed to the President-elect, and signed by Mrs. F.I Ihejirika, Leader and U. Unogu, Secretary, the group, under the umbrella of Abia State Disengaged Non-Indigene Workers, ASDNIW, narrated how the state government served them letters of disengagement on October 1, 2012, when the nation was celebrating its independence anniversary.

The group lamented that about two months later, the same government came up with another letter captioned, ‘Re-instatement of South South indigenes and other non-Igbo speaking states of Nigeria,’ thereby making sure that the disengaged workers were from core Igbo speaking states of the South East geo-political zone.

The workers said the unlawful disengagement was done without regard to those who had put in almost 35 years of service and were not given any terminal benefits.