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NLC Vs Kaduna Govt: El-Rufai Berates FG, Gives Condition For Negotiation With Labour Union

Published

4 years ago

May 20, 2021.

Kaduna Crisis: I Fight My Battles Alone – El-Rufai Slams Govs For Siding With Labour

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige had on Wednesday announced that he has apprehended the strike and invited both parties to a conciliation meeting
He also directed the two parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum pending the resolution of the issues in contention.

Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai has vowed that his administration would not honour a meeting with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) unless electricity is restored in the state.

The governor also lambasted the federal government for allowing workers of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) owned by it to disrupt electricity supply to his state.

El-Rufai made the comment after the NLC announced a suspension of a five-day warning strike called to protest the Kaduna government’s plans to lay off some of its civil servants due to what it blamed on a severe fiscal crisis.

In a statement issued on Thursday, El-Rufai was quoted as saying: “No official of Kaduna State will go to Abuja for any meeting with FGN (Federal Government of Nigeria) or NLC when the citizens of the State have no electricity.”

“We hold the FGN responsible for (its) inability to assert its ownership rights over TCN (Transmission Company of Nigeria). No electricity, no meeting.”

Hours before his latest update, the state government had said it was yet to see evidence “that the NLC is backing off from its campaign of economic and social sabotage against the people of the State.”

“Electric power is yet to be restored after it was shut down at dawn on Sunday, 16th May 2021, in brazen violation of the laws protecting essential services and infrastructure,” Muyiwa Adekeye, the spokesperson to El-Rufai, said in the statement.

“That action removed any basis for state government officials to meet the NLC last Sunday. Denying our people electricity about 18 hours to the advertised commencement of their organised sabotage was akin to putting a gun on the government’s head.Government has a lawful duty not to indulge blackmail.

KDSG is yet to see evidence that the NLC is backing off from its economic and social sabotage. Our people remain without electricity, an essential service that was illegally shutdown on 16 May 2021. KDSG insists on the restoration of this service. That is not up for negotiation pic.twitter.com/WJIO8Iap6q

— Governor of Kaduna (@GovKaduna) May 19, 2021

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“Restoring electricity is vital to relieving some of the pain that needless acts of lawlessness have inflicted on our people.

“The unimpeded provision of essential services is vital to civilised order. Those who have disrupted it should promptly reverse themselves, not expect that it will be a matter for negotiation, much less being viewed as a precondition.

“KDSG will not participate in such a negotiation or countenance one whilst our people are still being denied their right to electricity.”

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