Strike to last for 2 weeks - NLC President

The two-day-old strike embarked by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) against the Federal Govern­ment’s fuel price hike may last for two weeks, the union’s leadership has said.
NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, who addressed workers at Area One Motor Park in Abuja on Thursday, said that the union will ensure that the strike lasts for between one and two weeks,

Wabba said: “The protest for now is going to be at least one or two weeks. Then we can re­view our position and look at a lot of other options. We will do a review by the mid of next week, but if there is an oppor­tunity to look at the issue again from the point of the govern­ment because we do not want to sign something and at the end of the day, the public will say where is NLC when these issues we canvassed for even the reduction from N145 per litre of petrol. The government says the price is sacrosanct and that it is not possible to reduce anything and we should expect it to continue. The purpose of taking this action is to make a point and let the government know the feelings of Nigeri­ans.”
Also, the NLC Deputy President, Comrade Peter Adeyemi, National Union Lo­cal Government Employees (NULGE) President, Ibrahim Khaleel and Jaiye Gaskiya, the chairman of Labour and Civil Society Group, said the strike would continue until the de­mands of labour are met.
The NLC protest was almost marred by a clash between the protesting workers and pro-Buhari supporters at the mo­tor park.
As soon the members led by Wabba had gathered and were being addressed on the strike that a large number of youths besieged the motor park, wav­ing brooms and chanting pro-Buhari slogans.
The youths moved towards the labour protesters as the NLC President and civil soci­ety activists were addressing the crowd.
The spokesman of the youths, Mr. Abubakar Ad­amu Guduf, who were shout­ing “Sai Buhari”, said that they mobilised to support the gov­ernment of President Muham­madu Buhari because labour did not speak for them when the Boko Haram terrorists rav­aged the North East zone.
He said: “The reason why we are against the NLC is that none of them came out to pro­test against what Boko Haram was doing under former Presi­dent Goodluck Jonathan or how government left our peo­ple to be killed like fowl. They abandoned us.
“But now, Buhari is doing well, we now have peace and I can now go to Gwoza, my lo­cal government area and they say Buhari is not good,” Guduf said.
Meanwhile, the NLC has vowed to sustain the protest for more weeks even as it de­clared that “we are opened for dialogue anytime the govern­ment deems it fit to negotiate with us.”
Yesterday’s NLC procession began from the popular Berger Roundabout at about 9 am and terminated at Area 1 Round­about in Abuja.
Addressing the workers, Wabba said that the strike is about obnoxious policies that are detrimental to the general­ity of Nigerians.
“This is about policy en­gagement, this is about resist­ing a policy that has been im­posed on us and therefore we have made the point clearly that NLC must be seen to be consistent in standing by the truth and by the people to the fact that those policies are not consistent with the ideas of en­suring social justices,” Wabba said.
He said that NLC would continue to resist the N145 price of petrol because it will further exploit Nigerians.