Dear Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal,
The Executive Governor of Sokoto State,
Office of the Executive Governor,
Government House, Sokoto,
Sokoto State, Nigeria.
Sir,

INCREASE IN ALLOWANCES OF YOUTH CORPS
MEMBERS SERVING IN SOKOTO STATE: PLEASE
KINDLY CORRECT THE MISTAKE OF WRONGLY
CLASSIFYING THE UNIVERSITY GRADUATES OF
NURSING AS TECHNICIANS.

The University Graduates of Nursing Science Association
(UGONSA) also known as Graduate Nurses Association of Nigeria (GNAN), comprising Nurses with a minimum of first degree in Nursing Science, strongly hails your altruism for rising above average in this era of economic crunch, when many States are grappling to pay the salaries of Civil Servants, to increase the allowances of Corps members serving in Sokoto State. The announcement that the payment of the new allowance structure commences with immediate effect thrills the Association the more especially as it underscores that the exercise was not a mere political rhetoric but a genuine plot to extract the best out of our ever patriotic corps members through positive motivation.

2. However, the Association wishes to draw the attention of your Excellency to a mistake contained therein in the announcement. In the announcement, as carried by some online Newspapers on 15th June, 2016 (Please kindly refer to http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/06/ gov-tambuwal-raises-corps-members-allowance/ or http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/nysc-tambuwal-increases-corp-members-allowances/151402/ ). The following was stated:
“Graduates of Medicine will now be paid N50, 000 from the current amount of N36, 000. Pharmacists will now receive N25, 000 up from N19, 000 obtainable in the past, while graduates of lab science and other medical technicians like nurses are now entitled to monthly stipend of N15, 000, up from the current N9, 000 they are getting from the State Government”.

3. The branding of Youth Corps Nurses, who are holders of Bachelor of Nursing Science (B.N.Sc) degree as ‘technicians’ as well as declaring that they would be paid N15, 000 whereas their counterparts, with Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Pharm), who are on parity with them, receive N25,000 was no good news to us in the Nursing community.

4. This is because as a learned man who had once occupied the revered seat of the Speaker of House of Representatives, we hoped that you are much aware that University Graduates are not classified as Technicians in Nigeria and that they do not run the technical cadre in the schemes of service of the federation but rather the directorate cadre. In the same vein, we also expected that your successful career as a lawyer and a former speaker of the national legislative House must have familiarized you with the Federal Government gazette on the Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) Award that granted that the profession of Nursing is on parity with that of Pharmacy in Nigeria, as is the case in Great Britain (Please kindly refer to the attached IAP ruling).

5. We make such adumbrations not only because of your rich antecedent but also because we are verily aware that you have been properly briefed about the IAP award when you were serving as the Speaker of House of Reps.

6. Please kindly recall, His Excellency, that on 21st February 2013, undergraduates of Nursing Science stormed the National Assembly complex to protest their wrongful exclusion from the National Universities Commission’s (NUC) approved internship training for fresh graduates of healthcare disciplines and their aberrant under placement in the Civil Service post-NYSC. The petition they delivered to you on the said date inter alia emphasized that both professions of Pharmacy and Nursing are not only similar in entry qualifications and course duration for the award of first degree in the University but also on parity in terms of placement and remuneration in our healthcare delivery system as granted by the said IAP Award of the year 1981, and contained in the Federal Government Official Gazette
No.22, Vol.68, 7th May, 1981 part B.

7. We were all enthused by your understanding then that
their complained injustice and marginalization has no legal, logical or rational basis, which was why you were prompted to direct the House joint Committees on Health and Education to take up the matter with relevant authorities for immediate action.

8. Against this background we wish to humbly submit that we were, alas, taken aback by this mistake, of a Government headed by your highly distinguished Excellency, of branding the University Graduates of Nursing Science as ‘technicians’ and going further to erode the very parity between the profession of Nursing and Pharmacy, which you had in the recent past worked to restore in the spirit of equity, fairness and justice, by under placing the University Graduates of Nursing on N15,000 whereas their counterparts in Pharmacy are placed on N25,000. Nevertheless, we hope to understand that this under placement might be an innocent mistake that stemmed from the wrong classification of the University Graduates of Nursing as ‘technicians’.

9. With utmost sense of honour, we also wish to sincerely state that in terms of workload, no member of the healthcare team has a higher workload than the Nurse. Nurses are to the Hospital what mothers are to the family. We stay longer and closer with patients, care for them and as well monitor them round-the-clock just as mothers conventionally do for their children. The care of the sick is universally entrusted to Nurses that no area of medicine or healthcare can function without the Nurse. Be it Surgery, Paediatric care, Obstetrics and gynaecology, Accident and Emergency, Psychiatry, to mention but a few. None can function effectively without the services of the Nurse.

10. Corollarily, Nurses are more exposed to health hazards than other members of the healthcare team. During epidemics and health emergencies especially of deadly infectious diseases such as Ebola and Lasso fever, Nurses remain with the patients and care for them and sometimes pay the ultimate price. This is even as patient’s relatives and sometimes other members of the healthcare team are cowed to leave the patients in the lurch by the horrific veracity of the morbidity and fatality of such outbreaks. In such events, Nurses remain firmly with the patients. Nurse Ejelonu Justina was the first Nigerian healthcare provider that paid the supreme price in the battle to save Nigeria from the year 2014 Ebola scourge. Her patriotic bravery in carrying out the order of restraining the index case, Patrick Sawyer, led to the unfortunate loss of her own life but thankfully saved the entire nation from the Eola catastrophe. More Nurses than any other members of the healthcare team have also died caring for Lassa fever patients in the chequered history of our healthcare delivery.

11. There is no gainsaying elaborating further that Nurses are the mother (pillar) of our healthcare delivery system, who stay with and by us (patients) in times of health and illness, from birth till death, caring selflessly to promote our health, prevent or protect us from injuries and illnesses, help us restore our health when it deteriorates and alleviate our sufferings and pains.

12. We are therefore at a loss why the very crucial and
selfless service of the Nurse should be underrated and underappreciated especially by the Nigerian Governments, including ‘the Seat of the Caliphate’ State Government, headed by a well-read, well-informed, well-exposed and a respected people’s Governor?

PRAYER
Members of this Association sincerely and passionately
pray that:
I. the Graduates of B.N.Sc, who are University educated Nurses, and not Polytechnic trained OND or HD technicians, be labeled and addressed appropriately like other University Graduates or simply addressed as Nurses and not as ‘medical technicians’.
II. in the spirit of equity, justice and fairness make their
remuneration to be at par with that of their counterparts in Pharmacy as granted by the IAP Award 1981.
III. Your Excellency make whole the help you have started rendering to the Nursing profession, in your days as the Speaker of the House of Reps, by liaising with or encouraging our respected Head of Civil Service of the Federation to expedite action on the review of the Nursing Officers’ cadre to include the post of Intern Nurse for fresh Graduates of the B.N.Sc degree in the schemes of service or getting the Sokoto State Head of Service to support such move should action on the said review last till meeting time of the National Council on Establishment (NCE).

Submitted with deepest sense of respect.

Signed:
Chief (Hon) S.E.O. EGWUENU
National President

Nurse G.I. Nshi
National Secretary

http://www.nursingworldnigeria.com/2016/06/ugonsa-writes-to-governor-tambuwal

If I was tambuwal I would simply cancel the salaries I decided to pay all corps members. Corners feeling too entitled. Person wan dash money in these hard times, the people who him wan dash de complain

kishimi8:
If I was tambuwal I would simply cancel the salaries I decided to pay all corps members. Corners feeling too entitled. Person wan dash money in these hard times, the people who him wan dash de complain

You mean people work their asses out day in, day out, risking their lives, and all you can say is that he's dashing them money?? #smh

Lalasticlala, Seun, Mynd44 please come help move this to FP. Thanks