In January 1975, the Nigerian Military government responded to the unremitting pressure from the Nigerian labour movement for better salaries and wages, with the Udoji pay awards. This remuneration package entailed, in some cases, pay increases to government workers of the order of 100%, plus additional bonuses for the pay inequities in increments offered in the past. The awards represented a mammoth injection of funds into many homes, and Saro employees of the public sector were among the grateful beneficiaries. The resultant improvement in material circumstances would be promptly reflected in a more spirited involvement in SLU affairs, and a greater willingness in the membership to consider the subject of the acquisition of property in the Union's name. The financial problems of the Union were now to be much assuaged, and the momentum of Saro social celebration, vital to sustaining group morale in these xenophobic times, considerably quickened. Grave national problems, however, still awaited the immigrant community in its seventh decade of residence in the township of Port Harcourt. That of personal real estate would continue to be the biggest irritant, and, for some Saro, the most intractable problem of the late 1970's.

Issues of Saro Property Holders

By the start of 1976, most Saro whose homes had been acquired by the Abandoned Property Authority (APA), had resolved their problems, and recovered their assets. The Union and the Sierra Leone High Commission had been most instrumental in securing this outcome, and the gratitude of the affected Saro was to be seen in a greater commitment to the activities of the group which had been so robust in their defence. This halcyon phase was, however, dramatically altered, in June 1977, by the emergence of yet another threat to Saro owners of landed property. A. L. O. Thompson, the Union's Secretary, promptly alerted the High Commission in Lagos, to this disturbing development. He wrote of the Federal Military Government's new policy of acquiring and selling the owneroccupied homes of a number of Saro in the township. The circumstances surrounding this development are not totally clear from Thompson's initial correspondence, but he clearly conveyed the sense of renewed anxiety and angst within the affected households. The High Commissioner was urged to investigate the situation immediately, and to take up the matter with the federal government.