We didn’t betray you by not participating, TUC tells NLC

The Trade Union Congress says the union did not betray the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over its refusal to participate in the two-day protest declared by the NLC.

Recall that the NLC recently embarked on a nationwide protest over the level of hardship in the country and the failure of the Federal Government to negotiate a new minimum wage.

TUC president, Festus Osifo, stated that the body never agreed to embark on a protest with the NLC. He said, ‘I’ll just explain exactly what happened to you. Now, you see when you have when you say somebody opt out from a process, it means that the person was in before, it means that there was an agreement to do something.

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“When there is an agreement to do something at the last minute, you will not say I am not doing again. That is opting out, then you can use the word sold out. But in this scenario, there wasn’t any agreement to do anything
“We did not have any conversation; nobody even mentioned it to us that this is the direction to go. That conversation never took place. So as long as that also never took place, we never opt out of anything. If there was an initial agreement that let’s go for a protest, the winner say we are not going for that protest.

“You could call that opt out, you could call that sold out, you could call that anything. But in this scenario, there was no understanding at all. In fact, there was no discussion that could have even led to any understanding.”

Meanwhile, Osifo stated that he agrees with the President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, who expressed that they are not concerned with President Tinubu’s stance but are demanding the implementation of all agreements reached between the labour unions and the Federal Government after the removal of fuel subsidy.

Tinubu, on Thursday in Lagos, asked the labour unions to wait for 2027 if they’re interested in politics, adding that strike actions in his administration’s first nine months is unacceptable.