Sunny James, the chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress’ State branch, bemoaned that the dramatic nature of the change that Nigerians so much wanted has left them in a worse situation.
James made this statement on Tuesday as he led state employees in a protest march to the government building in support of the striking university employees.
The demonstrators, who moved slowly, chanted songs of unity and held signs with diverse messages, “fund education, “stop the proliferation of universities, “sign and implement all negotiated agreements, “IPPIS a fraud” “bring back our students to the University,” among others.
James said it was distressing that the federal government has been unable to meet the demands of the striking university workers for more than five months while speaking to demonstrators outside the Judiciary gate, across from the government building.
His words, “It’s unfortunate that the change Nigerians craved for has come in drastic dimensions, leaving us worse than we had expected.
“For a while now, Nigerian workers who are an affiliate of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities, Non-Academic Staff Union, and NATE have been on strike. Negotiations have been going back and forth on the matter with the federal government and the negotiations have not brought any result therefore NLC decided to intervene for these reliable affiliates”
He lamented that months after promising to do so in a meeting with the NLC, the federal government has still not established a body to break the deadlock.
“Arising from a meeting held on 30th of June 2022, it was resolved that the FG should set up a team with the view to resolving the impasse. Surprisingly several months have passed nothing has been done and Mr President had in his Sallah message to Nigeria workers said enough is enough, just a week ago the president gave a two weeks marching order to the Ministry of Education to resolve ASUU NASU, SSANU and NATE matter, one week after, nothing has happened, that is why NLC decided to deliver this letter to the governor with assurances that he will talk to them and tell them to resolve this matter.
He stated that the protest would take place in three stages, with the first taking the shape of a rally like today, the second being a three-day warning strike, and the third starting in the form of a full-blown indefinite strike if nothing is done within the time frame.
“This particular protest is in three tranches, this is the first tranche, the second one is coming very soon which will take the form of a three-day nationwide strike, then the third one if others are not achieved in a significant record time, NLC has put everything on the ground to embark on a full-fledged strike and they are going to be done concurrently” James added.
