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•Nothing can be done until Tinubu is back -Lalong
From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
As the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) holds an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) to decide if it would embark on a total indefinite shutdown of the country or not, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, is working feverishly to persuade the Union to shelve the idea, Daily Sun gathered.
According to Olajide Oshundun, spokesperson for the Ministry, Lalong was reaching out to leadership of the NLC to appeal to them for more time pending the arrival of President Bola Tinubu who left the country about three weeks ago to attend the G-20 Leaders’ Summit in Delhi, India.
He said: “When the NLC came, two principal issues which they tabled before the minister was the release of the NURTW leaders that were arrested and detained.
“The minister has succeeded in getting them bail and they have been released. So, the second issue is the wage award, which the minister cannot do much on until the president and the minister of finance come back. So, that is why is still appealing to the leadership of the NLC to give more time for him to handle the situation.”
The NLC had embarked on a two-day nationwide warning strike on September 5 and 6 to protest failure of the Nigerian government to proffer lasting solutions to the challenges caused by fuel subsidy removal as well as the detention of members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), amongst other demands.
The Congress also threatened to embark on a nationwide indefinite strike if the issues were still not addressed 21 days from the day it declared the warning strike.
The ultimatum lapses on Friday.
Recently, the Federal Government through the Minister of Labour and Employment, met separately with the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) with a view to averting the strike.
Lalong urged both unions to shield their swords and asked for more time to tackle some of the workers’ demands.
He warned that the strike was capable of crippling economic activities in the country and putting citizens into further hardship.
But the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, had insisted the Congress was tired of engaging with the government on the same topics without any positive outcomes.
He accused the government of being insincere and insensitive to the needs of workers.
Speaking on AriseTV last weekend, Ajaero hinted that the Congress may go on strike considering the reluctance of the government to meet their conditions.
The Federal Government, according to Ajaero, had more than enough time to resolve the conflict and meet the concerns of the labour movement, but instead decided not to.
He claimed that ordinarily, every Nigerian would have anticipated by this point a tangible outcome from the talks between the federal government and labour on palliatives.
When asked if he was certain the planned indefinite strike would succeed, Ajaero responded that the preceding warning strike had about 80 per cent success despite attempts to sabotage it.
“For the total, indefinite strike, Nigerians should expect total impact. First, the basis for asking for palliatives and even wage awards should have been there if the government were able to do the first things first.
“But for it to take steps to remove subsidy, every normal human being should have known that there will be effects and we should have equally discussed the effects.
“But within a few minutes, the subsidy was removed and we say, no, return it back to status quo so that we can discuss. They said, no, ask for palliatives, ask for wage increase. And here, the same thing they had asked us to ask were things we asked for but they can’t provide them and they have vacated the negotiating table.
“We don’t know what to do again. We gave a notice for protest, we did protest and they promised to get back to us. After that time, nothing happened. We gave notice for a warning strike, and the warning strike came and nothing happened.
“We gave another 21 days’ notice, it expires on Friday. I don’t know how much time the minister of labour is asking for. We honoured a meeting summoned by the minister last week.”
Ajaero accused the government of trying to undermine the strike, demonise the NLC leadership, and create division among the trade unions. He added that if such time and effort were used to seek a solution, it would have been found and the problem would have been solved.
He chided the government for channeling its time and effort to the wrong cause rather than investing in finding a solution to workers’ plight.
