Indications emerged weekend that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) may be heading for a split as a group of its affiliate unions has threatened to cede from the congress. The group has summoned a parallel delegates’ conference scheduled to hold between March 20 and March 21 in Lagos State. The threat is in response to the outcome of the just concluded elections of the congress’ national executives in which Ayuba Wabba was said to have emerged as the president with 1,695 while Joe Ajaero polled 1,400.
Meanwhile, Ajaero of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and Igwe Achese, president of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG), have rejected the result of the NLC election. Members of the aggrieved unions had on Friday walked out of the venue of the election, following the collapse of one of the agents who was later rushed to Maitama General Hospital by the Nigeria police and two other delegates. They alleged that the undue prolonged sorting and counting of the votes which lasted for over 12 hours was shrouded in secrecy and manipulated by the organisers.
While reacting to the post-election crisis, Peter Ozo-Ezon, NLC general secretary, urged all the affiliate unions to ignore any invitation to such a purported conference as the 11th delegates’ conference was concluded in the early hours of Saturday March 14 2015 following the successful election of the national executives of the congress in free, fair and credible elections under the watchful eyes of unions, delegates, invited guests, veterans and members of the media. Giving update on the processes leading to the elections, Ozo-Ezon argued that “the elections themselves were manifestly transparent, incontestable and unimpeachable.
“All the contestants and their delegates voluntarily lent and submitted themselves to the electioneering/voting processes. “At no time from the commencement of the accreditation of delegates to the voting, counting of votes and announcement of results was any complaint raised or lodged. “Congress, therefore, finds it necessary to advise that individuals should resist the temptation of being used as agents of fractionalisation or destabilisation of the congress”, Ozo-Ezon said, stressing that “the congress is bigger than any of us.”
Meanwhile, Kabiru Turaki, the supervising minister of labour and productivity, has described the emergence of Wabba as the newly elected NLC president as a step to further unite and build the Nigerian workforce through social dialogue. The minister urged the congress to toe the line of established paradigm shift in government/labour relationship which emphasised a move from confrontational government/labour relationship to a dialogue based approach in resolving all labour related matters. Turaki added that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan is a pro-workers’ regime as demonstrated by its workers’ friendly disposition and policies.
