Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has declared total strike in all the 12 states owing workers salary, insisting that none of the governors of the affected states would be allowed to go on May 29 without paying the outstanding salaries. As stated by NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, last week Friday, industrial action has been declared in Plateau, Taraba and Borno States, and the action would commence this week in all the remaining states. Wabba warned that the strike would be total and would paralyse activities in the states affected, so as to force the governors to live up to their responsibilities of paying the workers. “Workers deserve their wages, it is legitimate. If the workers have been sleeping now, they will wake up, as NLC is going to take up the responsibility of ensuring that no governor leaves office with workers’ salaries”, he stated. The comrade noted that the usual excuses had been that the states were not bouyant enough to pay the workers whereas they had money to sponsor political campaigns. Wabba stated that the Congress has threatened to make any state that fails in its primary responsibility towards workers ungovernable, stressing that settling all outstanding workers salary is an issue the NLC would not compromise. He said, “The money is there, it’s about getting their priorities right as the Minister of Finance expressed last week. It is expected that when they get their allocations, workers were supposed to be given priority, but rather those governors never gave any thought to the workers.” The Labour leader charged workers in the country to be more united in fighting their common enemies, which he described as poverty and lack. He reasoned that the challenges before the organised labour was enormous as labour has remained and will always be the voice of the masses in the face of oppression. Speaking further on the organized labour objection to subsidy removal, the NLC President stated it was in the bid to protect the interest of the common man and generality of Nigerians. He argued that subsidy cannot be removed now until government has resolved the issues of revamping the grounded refineries, build new ones and put an end to importation of refined oil products. Comrade Wabba stated subsidy itself isn’t a bad idea as it is done in other parts of the world, he however stated that the problem in the case with Nigeria was that of sincerity, transparency and proper management. Wabba emphasized that the corruption that characterizes the management of subsidy in Nigeria is alarming, adding that if government is sincere in her purpose on the subsidy, then it should first address the corruption surrounding subsidy and be transparent in her dealings with the marketers. He stated if government had been transparent from the outset, Nigerians and the necessary stakeholders would have had access to facts and figures on subsidy payment and the issue of discrepancies in payment as alleged by the marketers who now hold the country to ransom would not have happened.
