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By Bimbola Oyesola, [email protected]
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has threatened to embark on a nationwide three-day warning strike and protests, if the Federal Government fails to resolve versity workers after its 21-day ultimatum.
Arising from its Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting, the NLC said it would hold a national protest against the strike affecting students of Nigeria’s public universities, occasioned by government’s failure to honour agreements reached with trade unions in universities.
According to NLC, the protests would hold within the span of the subsisting 21-day ultimatum given by the congress: “The protest is to draw the attention of government to the inherent catastrophe in the emerging culture of social apartheid in our society, especially as marked by prolonged lockout of students from working class and poor homes from our public universities while the children of the rich continue their academic pursuits uninterrupted,” the Congress said.
It however said that, “if at the end of the national protest and the 21-days ultimatum, the Federal Government still fails to resolve the industrial crises in Nigeria’s universities, the Congress would be left with no other option than to embark on a 3-days nationwide warning strike action in solidarity with our affiliates in the universities and with Nigerian students whose future and wellbeing are being robbed.”
The Congress said all affiliates of the NLC are to issue public statements condemning the intermittent strike actions in Nigeria’s universities particularly the current one which has gone on for about two months.
On insecurity, the CWC described the current siege of insecurity as totally unacceptable and called on government to rein in this monstrous cancer before it consumes the entire country.
The statement read, “The CWC called for the declaration of all-out war against terrorists and their sponsors including those who divert funds meant to fight the security insurgency.
“While commiserating with Nigerians and workers who have lost loved ones and colleagues to the current siege of insecurity in the country, the CWC calls on government to focus on the immediate release from captivity of all abducted citizens including all the kidnapped Chibok girls, Leah Sharibu, students from Niger, Kebbi and Kaduna states, Abuja-Kaduna train abductees, the governorship candidate of Labour Party in Anambra State abducted since September 2021 and other Nigerians being held hostage in different kidnappers den.
The CWC also called on government to nip in the bud current intelligence on the threat by terrorists to resort to mass bombings.”
