These are not the best of times for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The former ruling party’s staff at their Abuja head office face down sizing which will lead to loss of jobs for about half of their staff.
The National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, led by Uche Secondus has finalised arrangements to prune the number of workers who are now jittery because they are unsure of those who may be affected.
So far, nobody is sure of the criteria for the selection of the staff to be laid of, however, sources say that the exercise will cut across all cadres of staff.
Findings revealed that the party was already working on the severance package for its directors who may be affected, but its plans for the supervisors and the intermediate staff are unknown.
The party is said to have initially earmarked the sum of N5 million as payoff for each of the directors who may be sacked. However, the party is reportedly contemplating on bringing down the payoff to N2 million each.
Though the party has not officially informed members of staff about the restructuring plan, all of them are already aware and afraid of what may befall them following the retrieval of their personal files from the registry by the management.
Meanwhile, the members of staff are now spoiling for war, saying that they will not accept the restructure plan unless they are guaranteed their full entitlements.
Some distraught party employees who spoke about the development affirmed that they have not been told what will happen even though they are aware that the party is working on reducing its staff.
They also claimed that laying them off will amount to rubbishing the sacrifice they made for the party during its trying times.
“We stood by the party when many people did not want to come near it because APC successfully tagged it a corrupt party. This is not a good way to repay us for our loyalty and support.”
This is not the first time the party will be embroiled in this kind of crisis. After it lost national elections in 2015, there were protests when party staff complained about renumeration and threats of down sizing.
