Local government workers across the 30 local government areas and the Ife East Area office in Osun State resumed their duties yesterday, 11 months after commencing strike action.
It would be recalled that the leadership of council workers under the aegis of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Osun chapter, directed their members to resume work on Monday last week and appealed to law enforcement agencies to ensure the safety of their members.
Osun local government workers withdrew their services following an alleged threat to their lives following the conflicts between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over control of local government secretariats in the state.
Workers in local governments visited by LEADERSHIP on Monday morning were seen cleaning their offices. At the same time, there was a heavy presence of security operatives in anticipation of the likelihood of a breakdown in orderliness.
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However, except for the Boluwaduro local government, where a staff member was arrested over an alleged attempt to remove files, workers were seen going about their daily activities without any issues in the local government secretariats visited.
At Olorunda local government, the chairman, Hon. Kunle Kudaisi AbdulMojeed, expressed his delight at the resumption of the workers, saying, "In the last 11 months, we have been begging, asking them in a friendly manner, we are all from this state.
We are all working for the progress of this state. They are around today, we are too sure that Osun state will move forward"
He urged them to cooperate with political functionaries, adding that he was prepared to work diligently with them to recover the lost ground in delivering the dividends of democracy.
However, the chairman of NULGE, Comrade Kehinde Nathaniel Ogungbangbe, who equally expressed happiness that his people complied with the resumption directives, expressed disappointment that security operatives allowed political functionaries into the premises of local governments across the state.
"We gave a press release that to avoid unnecessary crisis to repeat itself, and for the fact that there is no clear court owner, I mean (political head of local government presently) that local government workers should be allowed to resume to their duty post alone without any politician and that is what we wrote to the security agencies in Osun State, the Police, DSS, and the Civil Defence.
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"The Police gave a press release that they don't want to see any politician at the local government secretariat today, which was what made me commend their release, but to my utmost dismay, today I discovered that it was the police who were opening the gate for the politicians to enter the local government.
"Let's picture it that the PDP politicians now go to local government today, what do you think would have happened? There would be a clash, that is what we have been running away from since February, it's unfortunate."
