Barely 24 hours to the kick-off of the first leg of the nationwide labour-instigated mass rally in Lagos, the Federal Government has raised an alarm over a possible break-down of law and order on account of the protest.
This is coming just as the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has also, apart from insisting on going on with the protest, threatened to embark on strike over all the contentious issues at stake.
Minister of Labour and Productivity, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, who raised the security alarm at a negotiation meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Abuja yesterday, urged the NLC to guard against allowing the rally to get out of control and from being used by opposition elements to foment trouble.
The mass protest is part of efforts by the NLC to mount pressure on government for a new minimum wage, full implementation of the recommendations of the electoral reforms and to resist the policy of deregulation and privatization of the oil industry, among others.
According to the minister, because the tension arising from the just-concluded governorship rerun in Ekiti State is yet to subside, there is the likelihood that certain opposition elements who want to get even with government might cash in on the rally to cause violence and disrupt the peace.
“There is a lot of politics now. We all saw what happened in Ekiti State; just a simple election, the opposition almost took this country to the cleaners by bringing in all kinds of characters to come and disrupt the elections. The same thing now; if you want to embark on mass protest, what if the opposition political parties and politicians and other people jump into the scene thereby pushing it out of control? You may want it to be peaceful, what if miscreants take it over and turn it into violence for you; what are you going to do?
“I call on the NLC and the organised labour to please shelve the rallies because if they carry out the protest, hoodlums and miscreants will hijack it and turn it into a major crisis which may be difficult to curtail,” he said.
On his part, Speaker of the House of Representatives Dimeji Bankole advised the NLC to have a rethink about the planned protest.
According to him, such mass action could be hijacked by anti-democratic forces to discredit the Federal Government.
Despite the appeal by the Federal Government to Labour to shelve its planned protest, leaders of labour unions yesterday insisted on going ahead with the protest rally in Lagos tomorrow.
It also threatened to go on strike if at the end of the day government failed to respond to their demands.
Speaking at a news conference at the NLC Secretariat Annexe in Yaba, Lagos, Deputy President of the NLC, Comrade Peters Adeyemi, said labour is adamant and would not shelve the protest.
He lamented that labour had given government enough time to respond to the critical issues raised by labour, adding that up till the present moment, government had remained insensitive and unyielding.
“We have given government time to respond to the critical issues, but up till now, nothing concrete has happened. So we are going ahead with the protest. After the rally, if government still remains adamant, insensitive and unyielding, then we will follow it up with strike action. The protest is just the beginning of the series of actions.
“When we finish the rally, the National Executive Council of the NLC will hold consultative meeting with the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and LASCO to assess the next phase of action. But if we get the response of government, then we would not have any reason to go into the next phase of action.
“Our struggle is a legitimate one and those who are directing the struggle are the oppressed Nigerians who have been neglected over the years. If you look at the hardship workers are going through today, it does not require any opposition to initiate any protest rally,” Adeyemi said.
May122009