NLC Threatens Nationwide Strike Over Sack Of Kaduna Civil Servants

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has threatened to embark on a nationwide strike over what it described as the unlawful dismissal of civil servants by the Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai.

This was disclosed by the President of the Labour Union, Ayuba Wabba at a news conference in Abuja, after a meeting of the Central Working Committee (CWC).

Wabba said all members of the NLC will down tools nationwide for five days which will serve as a warning when nothing is done by relevant government agencies, the union will think of the next line of action.

The Labour Chairman explained that the plan of the union for a nationwide strike over El-Rufai’s action is due to the assumption that the governor is getting support from other states and the Federal Government.

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 “CWC has decided and has also recommended to the National Executive Council that labour will withdraw all services from either public or private from all sectors of the economy for five days in the first instance,” he said.

“And where there is no remorse, there is going to be a total action because we believe that El-Rufai is not alone in this action that neoliberal forces and also some government are also part of it.

“This action is going to be total and unconditional and therefore, all unions will be issuing statements and directives to their members to take this directive seriously and that the action will go ahead.”

The NLC President disclosed that the action was taken as a last resort because all communications written on the issue to the Kaduna State Government were yet to receive attention.

Therefore, the CWC, felt that workers should not be allowed to die in silence as thousands of workers who had been sacked were yet to be paid in line with the provisions of the law.

The move of the labour union is coming a week after El-Rufai announced the plan to massively sack civil servants in the state, citing fiscal reasons.

The Governor has posited that a significant amount of the statutory federal allocations to the state is being spent on the wages of public servants.

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The governor said that the decision was one of the necessary moves to salvage the finance of the state.

“Therefore, the state government has no choice but to shed some weight and reduce the size of the public service. It is a painful but necessary step to take, for the sake of the majority of the people of this state,” the governor was quoted in a statement.

“The public service of the state with less than 100,000 employees and their families cannot be consuming more than 90% of government resources, with little left to positively impact the lives of the more than 9 million that are not political appointees or civil servants.

“It is gross injustice for such a micro minority to consume the majority of the resources of the State,” El-Rufai said.