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Reports have emerged that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has threatened to embark on a nationwide protest despite the new agreement with President Bola Tinubu on the new minimum wage.
Tinubu met with leaders of organised labour, consisting of NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC) at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday, July 18, 2024, where all the parties agreed to peg the minimum wage at 70 thousand naira.
The President also promised to find ways to assist the private sector and sub-national governments to meet the new wage.
In addition, he pledged to use his discretionary powers to meet the demands of university unions demanding unpaid four months' salaries.
The development may have brought to an end months of tension and agitations between the government and organised labour, barring any pushbacks from state governors.
Labour threatens strike over new demands
However, the NLC has vowed to protest the treatment of protesting members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and Allied Institutions by the Police.
The congress made this known in a statement by its Head of Public Affairs, Benson Upah, on Thursday evening.
Upah also warned that the government will court a nationwide protest if it fails to heed its warnings.
This followed the action of the Nigeria Police, which stopped the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of SSANU and NASU from carrying out a peaceful protest in Abuja earlier on Thursday over withheld salaries.
The FCT Minister, Benneth Igwe, had stormed the Unity Fountain, where the leadership of the JAC were addressing members before onward movement to the Ministry of Education and that of Labour and Employment.
Igwe warned that there would be no protest and all entreaties made to the police leadership by leaders of the two unions fell on deaf ears, effectively preventing them from proceeding with the protest rally.
Labour knocks police
In his reaction, Upah also knocked Igwe over the alleged harassment of the protesting university workers.
“The FCT Police Command Commissioner, Compol Bennett Igweh deservedly earned our outrage and contempt by violently breaking up a peaceful protest at Unity Fountain on Thursday, July 18, 2024, by members of two of our affiliates, NASU and SSANU.
“The behaviour of the police is an affront to the 1999 constitution (as amended), ILO Conventions 87 and 98 and African Charter on People and Human Rights which guarantee freedom of association and speech; a violation of the Supreme Court ruling that citizens do not need the permit or approval of the police to peacefully protest and an insult to the dignity of self-respecting and law-abiding citizens.
“The reason for the peaceful protest by NASU and SSANU is very much in the public domain which is the non-payment of their four-months withheld salaries after workers in other unions were paid for the same strike action.
“The two unions had exhausted all means lawful over a long period including a warning strike as a means for getting their salaries paid.”