- TUC President Initially Denied Knowledge of Meeting
THE Trade Union Congress (TUC) has advanced reasons why the leadership of its secretariat met with officials of the Kaduna State government at a time that the entire structures and affiliates of the Nigeria Labour Congress were enmeshed in a bitter struggle with the government over the mass sack of workers in the state’s public service.
According to the TUC, in a terse communiqué it issued at the end of an emergency meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) said to have held virtually on Tuesday, 18th May, 2021, the agenda was to deliberate “on the ongoing workers strike in Kaduna State.”
The NEC, the communiqué signed by Comrade Quadri A. Olaleye, stated, resolved as follows:
“-That the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria is aware and monitoring the ongoing strike in Kaduna state.
“-That the visit to the Head of Service (HoS) in Kaduna was not designed by any means to undermine the strike action nor was it meant as a solidarity visit to the State government and should not be taken as such.
“-That it was principally undertaken as a FACT finding Mission and to further engage the state government on the way out through social dialogue that will benefit the workers and people of Kaduna state.
“-That the NLC and TUC are United in arms against exploitation, oppression, victimization and all acts that enslaves the Nigerian Worker, workers are not slaves.”
The communiqué concluded by assuring workers and the general public that “labour unity has not been compromised. We are in solidarity with the NLC on the strike in Kaduna and we look forward to its early amicable resolution.”
I’m not aware of that meeting – Comrade Olaleye
But contrary to the position of the TUC President in the communiqué, when he was contacted by National Record on Monday night and asked what the TUC Secretary General and other officers of the centre were doing in Kaduna in a meeting with state government officials at a time that the NLC was battling the governor over the sack of thousands of workers, Comrade Olaleye told our correspondent that he was not aware of any such meeting.
When told that with the commencement of the warning strike and the street protests by NLC against the mass sack by the state government, it will appear as if the TUC was deliberately out to sabotage NLC’s campaign, Comrade Olaleye said: “I’m not aware of that meeting; I’ll find out, and maybe I’ll get back to you.”
Comrade Olaleye then asked this reporter from where he got the information about the meeting. He was told that the Kaduna State government made the information available on its official twitter handle, and that National Record had already written and published a story out of it with pictures from the meeting, and the story’s link had already been sent to him via WhatsApp.
The TUC President then stated again that he was not aware but simply said: “I’ll check, I’ll check.”
The president however did not get back to National Record as he had promised until the communiqué of the virtual NEC meeting was made available to us on Tuesday night.
Prior to the call to Comrade Olaleye, National Record had called Comrade Ozigi several times but he neither picked the calls nor called back.
Thereafter our correspondent also called one of the senior information officers of the TUC in Lagos who said he was not aware of any such meeting, and that the arrangement for that meeting might have taken place in Abuja.
