NLC begins mobilizing for a marathon protest in Kaduna

By Matthew Denis

The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has asked its affiliate unions in Kaduna State to start mobilising for another strike against the state government.

The union will cripple the activities of Kaduna state government any moment from this publication should federal government fail to reconcile the two aggrieved parties.

President of the NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, gave the notice during a press conference, after an emergency National Executive Council meeting of the congress yesterday in Abuja.

Wabba accused the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, of failing to respect the Memorandum of Understanding brokered between the NLC and the state government by the Federal Government.

He said the congress, after exhausting all avenues, including writing letters to President Muhammadu Buhari and Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has decided to resume the strike.

It would be recalled that Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, and the NLC recently clashed when the congress went to the state to protest against the governor’s mass sacking of workers.

Recalled that El-Rufai had alleged that members of the NLC were paid from Abuja to organise the recent protest against his government’s rightsizing exercise.

He said specifically that he knows those who gave the labour leaders money to organise the protest and that he will soon expose them.

The governor, who declared the protest which shutdown electricity and other sectors of the economy in the state as illegal, therefore, dared the labour movement to come to Kaduna for another protest.

Recall also that the Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity, tried to intervene on the crisis but it appears its intervention didn’t pay off.

Wabba has repeatedly accused El-Rufai of neo-liberal policies, especially on the welfare of workers.