Admin l Tuesday, January 01, 2019
ABUJA, Nigeria – Organised labour has called on Nigerians to stock food ahead of a prolonged national strike in this new year. The Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC) made the call in its new year message to Nigerians.
In his address, President NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba described 2017 as a very difficult year for Nigerians, with a very damning message for the rulling All Progressives Congress(APC). According to him, the APC-led government ruined Nigerians during the year and pushed more workers into poverty and wretchedness, forcing many into suicide.
He said the deplorable economic conditions in 2017 were captured by the statistics recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics which shows that over 4 million Nigerians lost their jobs in 2017. He stated that the APC government had chastised and ruined Nigerians through its policies, noting that workers were the most affected by the despondent economy.
“Rather than work to create jobs and improve the conditions of workers and Nigerians in general, leading elements in the ruling APC government, like Governor Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna state), have been taking measures to further chastise and ruin Nigerians by throwing tens of thousands of workers into the already saturated unemployment market and wretchedness,” the NLC said, adding that despite the huge revenue states had received from the Paris Club loan refunds and other interventions to clear arrears of salaries and pensions, states like Kogi, Osun, Benue, Ekiti, Bayelsa and several others entered 2018 with huge arrears spanning up to 10 or more months of wages and pensions.
He vowed to mobilise workers for the full payment of the outstanding salaries and pensions in the New Year. He described 2018 remains one of the most traumatic for workers especially given the failure of government to enact and implement the new national minimum wage of N30,000.
“This is in spite of the unimpeachable tripartite process leading to the agreement by the social partners on the new national minimum wage.
“It is unfortunate that the Federal Government is yet to transmit to the National Assembly an executive bill for the enactment of N30,000 as the new national minimum wage.
“Government’s dilly-dallying on the issue has strained Government-Labour relations with a potential for a major national strike which could just be days away.
“Accordingly, we would use this opportunity to appeal to the Government to do the needful by urgently transmitting the bill on the new national minimum wage to the National Assembly.
“We also would like to use this same opportunity to urge workers to fully mobilise for a prolonged national strike and enforce their right,” he said.
