How Jos North Management Chairperson, Theresa Azi, For The Second Time Jumped Fence To Escape Protesting Workers

Yakubu Busari

Management committee Chairman of Jos North Local Government Council has been blamed for the non-payment of arrears, even as this has escalated where workers threatened showdown.

It was a mild drama on Wednesday when angry staff locked up the Management Committee Chairperson of Jos North local government area of Plateau state, Mrs. Theresa Azi in her office to protest the non-payment of accumulated leave grant as well as other entitlements being owed the staff of the Council for over four years.

The management committee chairman has been accused by the staff of indiscriminate selling of local government assets in Dung and Farin Gada to the tune of billions naira.

The staff explained that Mrs. Theresa Azi who has turned billionaires overnight has been alleged to have auctioned vehicles and properties of the council; she was also accused of promoting tribal bigotries since her assumption of office one year ago.

This medium gathered this is not the first time that the Chairperson as locked up, as some time ago she was locked in her office by the irate staff and this has made her to avoid going to the office in order to prevent a recurrence but decided to go there on Wednesday for a meeting with the Management of the Council but the staff again barricaded the main entrance of the Secretariat to prevent her car from leaving the premises.

However, a staff who did not want to be named told our correspondent that “as she tried leaving the premises by foot through the back gate, some staff who spotted her trying to board a commercial tricycle shouted “thief” in Hausa language thereby drawing the attention of some Policemen attached to the nearby Police station.”

“Even with the intervention of the Policemen who recognized her as the Council’s Chairperson, the aggrieved staff refused her leaving the premises but a detachment of some security personnel were brought in to whisk her out of the compound.”

This is not the first time since she came into office over a year ago that the staff would locked her in office and when our correspondent called the Council’s Information Officer, Jena Ezekiel to shed light on the trend, she said, “there is nothing happening at the Local Government, nothing” and put off her mobile line.

Also, several calls put across to the mobile number of the Council’s Chairman of the National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, Yakubu Dung were not picked and Mrs. Azi could not be reached at the time of this report.

But a senior staff of the Council who said he is not the mouthpiece of the Council said, “The politics of Jos North Council is dirty. The three indigenous tribes are not cooperating, there are so many rancor and bitterness among the tribes and this always transfers to whoever is the head of the Council.

“The Chairperson came in for a meeting but when she wanted to leave for another meeting, some staff locked the main gate but she left on foot with her aide because she needed to be at another meeting. The issues raised by the staff are being discussed; we just need to be patient.”

However, it was gathered that the council boss has allegedly siphoned money belonging to the council for her personal use without paying them their arrears and allowances which is now four years.