Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Joe Ajaero-led faction of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) that had planned to commence an industrial action, on Wednesday, to protest the liberalization of the petroleum downstream sector, which led to a new fuel pump price of N145 has been Commended for not going ahead with the earlier planned Strike.
Mr Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), said it in Abuja at a news conference on Wednesday after a meeting earlier scheduled to avert the proposed protest.
The SGF,said that it was after several deliberation with full cooperation of the Federal Government ,The TUC and the Joe Ajaero-led faction of the NLC, that the planned Strike was layed aside.
According to him, a faction of the NLC completely agreed with the position of the TUC that they will participate in all the technical committees and that work continues on Wednesday as usual.
Adding that the elected NLC representatives had decided that unless government addressed their demands, they would have no further participation in the process.
“We only received a notice from them on Saturday and it is government position that it is not humanly possible to respond to their demand within the time frame.
Government is fully assured that there will be no strike. Again, we will like to report to Nigerians that the Industrial Court has given an injunction that no strike should hold by NLC and TUC.
The Government wishes to assure all Nigerians that they should report at their duty posts and go about their jobs as usual. Anyone embarking on strike is doing so illegally.”
He also said that government responsibility is to guarantee security of lives and property as well as freedom of movement and association. The SGF said anyone found in anyway trying to compel Nigerians to do otherwise, would be challenged by the laws of the land, that the Federal Government had taken the extreme arrangement to liberalise the petroleum sector, knowing that the decision could have disadvantageous result to the comfort of Nigerians.
“But it is a decision to be taken at this time and it is the President’s believe that for a better future, painful decisions needed to be taken now.
The government is determined to bring Nigeria out of previous rot and take bold decisions where necessary, some of which are expected to be painful.
“There is no other choice to this matter; if the president had a choice to take other options that would be less painful than this, he would have gone for it,” Lawal said.
Bobboi Kaigama, the President of the Trade Union Congress, pledged the union’s support for the removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government.
According to Kaigama, the TUC would no longer embark on the nationwide strike as earlier proposed.
He said the decision was taken at the National Executive Council meeting of the TUC.
In his words, “We want to say that we have disengaged ourselves from this strike because we have been duly educated on the benefits of the fuel subsidy removal.”
Also, the Joe Ajaero-led faction of the Nigeria Labour Congress has also backed out of the planned labour strike.
