Close to three months after the Cross River State Government offered automatic employment to Arit Abam, the ex-corps member, whose show of gratitude to her father after she completed service was recorded and posted in an online video that went viral, www.calitown.com can reveal that Abam is yet to be documented by the state government so that she can begin to earn her entitlements as a staff of the state civil service.
Recall that after the said video went viral, Akwa Ibom State governor, Umo Eno, moved by the video, directed his aides to seek out the young woman. After they located her, he spoke to her through a Whatsapp video call and further directed that a building be erected on the site of her father’s not too good building. Eno has since completed and equipped the building in record time.
Apparently towing the goodwill line of the Akwa Ibom State governor, Bassey Otu, Cross River State governor, while receiving the young lady in his office on April 7, 2024, commended her exceptional show of gratitude to her father and offered the Mass Communication graduate automatic employment into the CRS civil service.
But two months, three weeks after the governor’s pronouncement, checks we made showed that bureaucratic bottlenecks are standing between Abam and the pronouncement. While the young lady has not volunteered information, a highly placed source in service insisted that until the Chairman, Cross River State Civil Service Commission, appointed recently, but yet to be sworn in, “…takes over, it will be difficult.”
This position was refuted by another former top civil servant in the state who guided us that, “her situation at this point, has nothing to do with Chairman, Civil Service Commission, at this stage. Her appointment was an Executive Order, pronounced by the governor. The Head of Service is the one who will generate a memo to the governor, based on this order. When the governor appends his approval to this order, the HOS, will transmit this approval in another memo to the Civil Service Commission, which will then have to call her in and look at her credentials for appropriate level and grade placement”.
Two quick attempts to have her speak on this matter were met with the reply: “I have no authority or clearance to discuss this with the press please”, as her story continues.
