This is no time for strike threats, NURTW warns NLC President over proposed industrial Action

Olalekan Fagbade September 3, 2023

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The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) has warned the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero to desist from making statements that are capable of heating up the country.

The new NURTW leader, Tajudeen Agbede, stated this while reacting to a communiqué issued by the NLC at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja.

In the communiqué, the NLC had threatened to “commence a 2-day nationwide warning strike on Tuesday and Wednesday, the 5th and 6th of September 2023 to demonstrate our readiness for the indefinite strike later in the month and to also demand that state vacates the illegally occupied National Headquarters of the NURTW.

But reacting to the communiqué, Agbede regretted that “from the contents of the communiqué, it clearly showed that Comrade Ajaero and his team have lost touch with present reality in the country today or are being blindfolded by political/ethnic considerations, as this is not a perfect time for any reasonable group or person to be nursing the idea of calling out workers on strike when the majority of our people are struggling to survive

“I want Comrade Ajaero to realize that the duty of NLC is more than just dishing out strike threats all the time. I would advise him to start taking lessons from his predecessors (Comrades Ayuba Wabba, Adams Oshiomhole (etc) on how to run a proper trade Union organisation. The present administration of President Bola Tinubu is barely three months in office and Ajaero has threatened to go on strike on 5 different occasions. Haba! Our people in Southwest have started to read ethnic/ political meanings to NLC positions on Tinubu administration.

Concerning our union, NURTW, “we are seriously worried and disturbed by the later day interest the NLC is showing in the affairs of our union lately. The crisis we are facing today would not have aggravated to this level if the NLC had given it the necessary attention an initio (at the beginning)

” It is on record that aggrieved members and major stakeholders in our union wrote series of letters to the NLC to complain about the atrocities and highhandedness of Baruwa led executive, but NLC did not react or act on those letters. Our members were ignored.

“If the NLC had given the letters the required attention at the initial stage, the crisis might have nipped in the bud, but the NLC failed to respond/act.”