The Senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, has urged the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to focus on advancing workers’ rights rather than engaging in partisan politics.
He made the call in Abuja on Tuesday, in an interview with State House Correspondents, after he paid a courtesy visit to the nation’s Vice President, Kashim Shettima.
Reacting to the decision of labour unions in the country to declare an indefinite nationwide strike with effect from midnight of Tuesday November 14, Oshiomhole said priority should be given to addressing the plight of public servants who are yet to start enjoying the N30, 000 minimum wage.
He said: “As a worker in the Senate, I don’t pretend over the fact that my first constituency, my permanent constituency, is labour. I can be removed as Chairman of APC as I was removed. But I couldn’t have been removed as a labourer. I remain labour in heart and labour in views, and labour in my aspirations.
“I will expect that even as we speak now that the issues that will appeal to me will be the fact that as we speak, we have states that are not paying N30, 000. And those states are not being mobilized to go on strike.
“The federal government has granted N35,000 increase. And those discussions were supposed to be for and on behalf of not only the federal government, but on behalf of all workers in Nigeria, including those employed by local governments and state governments.
“Also to ensure that the additional revenue accruing from the withdrawal of subsidy trickles down to the state and to the local government. Now, I would have wished that somebody, the NLC would recognize that the hunger in the stomach of federal employees is not any worse than the hunger in the stomach of those state employees, nor local government employees.”
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