NLC To Shut Down Kaduna Again As Negotiation Breaks Down

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.

It would also back the strike with protest.

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

However, 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.