During the last workers day celebration in Owerri, one group added some real dramatics to their own march-past. They wore mourning clothes(all black). When they got before the governor, they all knelt down and assumed begging postures. Some actually wept before him and he understood their gestures. They were the Imo people that were thrown out of Abia state public service, whom the governor had promised reinstatement more than a year before.

As expected, the governor went down to them and joined the drama. Some say he even wept with them and asked them to stand up. He later announced that they all had been absorbed into the state public service with a flat rate salary of twenty thousand Naira, pending the full regularization of their service.

Two months on, these workers are still wearing mourning clothes as nothing has happened to change their story.