Fear, Uncertainty As Labour Threatens To Shut Down The Country If Buhari Increases Price Of Electricity, Petrol2 min read

The organised labour in Nigeria has President Buhari administration refrain from any plan to increase the price of electricity or petrol to avert a crisis in the economy.

Babatunde Olatunji who is the president of the National Union of Chemical, Footwear Rubber Leather and Non-Metalic Product Employees (NUCFRLANMPE) made the appeal at the 29th Annual Industrial Relations Serminar of the union in ibadan on Monday NAN reports

According to Olatunji, any plan to increase electricity or petrol will be a wrong step and the organised labour will do everything within it’s capacity to resist it.

He said that currently, the power supply in Nigeria stood at 4,000 megawatts for about 200 million population compared to South Africa with 58,000 megawatts and has 50 million population.

Industrailisation cannot take place in the absence of power, Inadequate infrastructure like bad road network is also a challenge.

“Government should ensure adequate power, security if lives and properties as well as regulate multiple taxation and charges to allow manufacturing companies survive, thus promote Gross Domestic Products in the country”, he said.

The labour leader further said that the effect of socio economic crises and coronavirus pandemic on industrial relations was evident in a high number of job losses arising from factory closure.

He said that the management of some organization in a bid to maximise profit have made staff work for more than eight hours without over time payment while much parmanent employment are converted to casual.

Olatunji urged the management of affected organizations to treat all workers with dignity and also respect the International Labour Organization’s law on workers right to join a union irrespective of their status.

In another development, the Federal Government has explained why it had not paid the University Revitalisation Fund and met other demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

The Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, who stated this in an interview with the Punch Newspaper said the Government was working hard to ensure the release of the revitalisation fund by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

While reacting, ASUU dismissed the minister’s explanation, saying the government was been dishonest in it’s justification of the delay in paying the revitalisation fund.

In 2020, a nine-month strike by ASUU, which commenced in March and was called off in December, paralyzed public universities in the country.

The lecturers had gone on strike following their disagreement with the government over the funding of the universities and ineffectiveness and discrepancies around the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, among others.

ASUU, however developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution to replace the IPPIS and had several meetings with officials of the ministries of finance, education, labour and employment, and the office of the Accountant General of the Federation before the UTAS was approved, but it has yet to be implemented.

On August 2, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said the government had paid the revitalisation fund as contained in the Memorandum of Action signed with the lecturers.

He however said the money was in the custody of the CBN pending the conclusion of the audit.

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