On Thursday, dissatisfied employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) held a peaceful protest outside the SEC’s headquarters.
The disgruntled employees claimed they staged the demonstration in order to gain the attention of the Commission’s board of directors, which was meeting at the time.
Mr Nelson Oleghe, the Chairman of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, SEC Unit, addressed journalists and mentioned several other difficulties affecting the employees, including parity adjustment, vacancy declaration, and examination structure.
What the staff is saying
Oleghe spoke to newsmen at the end of a closed-door meeting with members of the association and the board.
He said the appointment of directors was one of the issues that needed to be addressed by the SEC management.
He said, “Before now, we have had several issues that the board and management have not attended to. One of the issues is the appointment of directors. We had several discussions with the executive management to appoint directors from the deputy directors we have today but they said they will appoint only six due to lack of funds.”
“Reliably, we heard that there was a memo going to the board to bring in directors from outside including those that had served here, so we felt that will be injustice to the system,” he added.
He mentioned that some staff have been serving for 7 years without promotion. He said, “Another issue is outstanding promotion; we have four sets of promotion that are due but not carried out. There are staff that have stayed in a position for over seven years without promotion.
“The management said that they will do the promotion but we have not seen any evidence on ground.
- Mr Mamman Ali, the organization’s Treasurer, stated that the organisation was counting on the legacy and integrity of the commission’s board Chairman, Mr Olufemi Lijadu, to resolve their issues.
- Mr Ibrahim Boyi, the SEC’s Executive Commissioner for Corporate Services, addressed the workers during the protest and urged them to remain calm, stating that their actions should not be based on unauthorised information.
