Warning Strike: ‘Spending 90% Of FAAC On Salaries Unsustainable’ — Kaduna Defends Sack Of 4,000 Workers

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Unions threaten to shut Kaduna airport

Kaduna State Government and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC)
are poised for a showdown on Monday at the commencement of a
five-day warning strike by the latter. The state chapter of NLC had
last week issued notice of the warning strike, commencing on
Monday, to protest the sacking of workers by the state
government.

But the government warned civil servants against participating
in the strike, accusing NLC of plotting to cause violence in the
state.

However, several labour organisations directed their members to
participate in the action, with aviation workers threatening to
close the Kaduna airport in compliance with the NLC protest.

At a press conference on Saturday in Kaduna, the Commissioner
for Local Government Affairs, Mallam Jafaru Sani, alleged that some
trade union leaders, led by President of NLC, Mr. Ayuba Wabba, were
planning to cause mayhem in the state. Sani also accused Wabba of
causing the destruction of government property in 2017 during a
protest against the sacking of over 20,000 workers by the Governor
Nasir el-Rufai government. He alleged that there was a subsisting
warrant for Wabba’s arrest “for vandalisation of government
facilities, in violation of the Miscellaneous Offences Act and
other laws of the land.”

According to the commissioner, “Security agencies have been
notified of the plans of some trade unionists to recruit hoodlums,
including from other states, to create a destructive spectacle and
further their self-serving narrative about public service jobs and
insecurity.”

Sani alleged, “The Kaduna State Government has been made aware
of plans by some trade unionists, led by Ayuba Wabba, to reprise
the mayhem they visited on Kaduna during their rampage of 8
November 2017.”

Wabba and other trade union leaders on November 8, 2017 led a
protest against the sacking of 21,780 schoolteachers in the state,
said to have failed a competency test organised by the
government.

Sani warned that besides the restriction on imposed by the
COVID-19 protocols, a ban on public processions subsisted in this
state.

He said the state government would “protect its facilities and
the right of its staff to access and work in their offices,”
warning, “It is unlawful for anyone to try to deny them access or
exit.”

He said, “Government offices are not the property of any trade
unionist and none of them should entertain thoughts of locking up
or vandalising any facility.

“As in 2017, the Kaduna State Government will not subject its
policy to the veto of a mob.
“This government did not campaign on a platform of tired populism
and it was not elected to practice timidity as public policy.

“It is not about to create the mistaken impression that it has
much fiscal wiggle room as a subnational or that it is the supreme
goal of government to pay 100,000 people while ignoring the larger
public welfare of 10m citizens.

“The trade union laws of this country are not a cover for
irresponsibility, and therefore everyone concerned should be
rightly guided.”

The state government had earlier in the week issued a circular
directing civil servants to disregard the NLC strike notice. The
circular by the Permanent Secretary, Establishment, Amina
Abdullahi, on behalf the Head of Service, and addressed to all
chief executives of government agencies and parastatals, directed
all civil servants to report to work and sign a register.

“I am directed to request you to inform all civil servants in
your MDAs and other arms of government to disregard the notice
issued by the NLC and report to work,” the circular said.

However, the state chapter of NLC, in a statement, called on
workers to disregard the threats by the government. The statement
signed by the state secretary of NLC, Comrade Christiana Bawa, said
no worker in the state civil service in the El-Rufai administration
had job security.

NLC accused the Kaduna State government of sacking over 30,000
workers in 2016 and refusing to pay their entitlements.

It said, “Since the history of Nigeria there’s no government
that disengaged workers like the present government of Governor
Nasir Elrufai.

“This is the time to tell the world that Kaduna State government
is antiworker and want to destroy the civil service in the name of
reform.”

Meanwhile, several bodies affiliated to NLC directed their
members to participate in the five-day warning strike. The unions
include Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers
(NUPENG), National Union of Roa d Transport Workers (NURTW),
National Union of Electricity Employees of Nigeria (NUEE), National
Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institution Employees
(NUBIFIE), Nigeria Union of Railway Workers, National Association
of Nurses and Midwives, Aviation Workers Union, and Local
Government Employees.

Aviation workers under the aegis of the National Union of Air
Transport Employees (NUATE), Association of Nigerian Aviation
Professionals (ANAP), and National Association of Aircraft Pilots
and Engineers (NAAPE) threatened to shut down the Kaduna airport in
compliance with the strike action declared by NLC

The unions made this known in a statement on Saturday addressed
to the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Federal
Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and copied to the Kaduna
Branch Chairman/Secretariat of NUATE, ANAP and NAAPE.

The unions said they would proceed with the industrial action
from midnight of Sunday, May 16 to midnight of Friday, May 21.

The statement dated May 14, 2021 and titled, “Notice of Strike
Action at Kaduna Airport,” was jointly signed by General Secretary,
NUATE, Comrade Ocheme Aba, Secretary General, ANAP, Comrade
Abdulrasaq Saidu, and Deputy General Secretary, NAAPE, Comrade Umoh
Ofonime. It said, “All workers at the Kaduna airport have been
directed to withdraw all services at the airport within the
stipulated period. In effect, there will be no operations of any
kind into, at or out of, the airport within the period.”