The Nigeria Labour Congress President, Mr. Joe Ajaero, said that no governor has the authority to outlaw labour unions, pointing out that the Constitution’s executive-legislative list covers union practices.
He also bemoaned the fact that most governors now reside in Abuja continuously, which is detrimental to their states.
He noted this on Monday, February 10.
Ajaero was responding to the proscription of labour unions in state-owned tertiary institutions by former Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, at a town hall meeting with workers at the NLC Secretariat, Lokoja, the state capital.
He stated, “Let me say here, union practice falls under the exclusive legislative list in the Constitution. No governor has the power to ban them, you don’t ban what you don’t have control over.
“Unions are registered nationally by the Registrar of Trade Unions. For administrative convenience, they may choose to have branches in states, so what are you now banning?”
The NLC president, who expressed his astonishment that such a thing exists in the state, said the state government lacked the right to proscribe unions under the exclusive legislative list.
He, however, lamented that most governors abandon their states and live permanently in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, while the people they were supposed to govern are facing hardship.
Ajaero added that the NLC leadership is in Kogi State to deliver and inaugurate 10 Compressed Natural Gas buses provided to the state chapter of the congress to ease transportation problems.
Ajaero, who noted that the leadership had visited five zones, regretted that the governors were always absent, having travelled to Abuja.
While stressing that workers were feeling the heat of the harsh economic realities, with the high cost of living, Ajaero said for the government to contemplate increasing tariffs on telecom, was pushing workers too far.
He said the leadership would take to the governor the problems and demands workers reeled out, even as he said of the five zones visited, it was only in one the governor was around.
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Ajaero said, “However, there is a problem we are having in trends because most governors are now living permanently in Abuja. We have moved to about five zones, Kogi is about the fifth zone. We have met governors in only one state. Each time you go there, they are in Abuja and this is affecting governance.
“I think we should be able to manage the centre and the units, so people will have the feeling of democracy, the dividend of democracy so that people can talk to their leaders.
“So, if we capture all these things, the information you are going to give us will be conditional if the governor is around. If he’s around, we will convey your information to him. If he’s not around, whosoever he’s going to send, we pass it to him.”
He said that Kogi State was strategic to the congress because it had union leaders as governor and deputy, adding that Governor Usman Ododo was one of his officials in Niger State and the deputy, an official of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT.
He said, “So, we want to make this as a town hall meeting to listen to you to know what has been done and what has not been done properly, so we take it to them.
“To us, it is like homecoming. We want to come and interact with them to find out whether they are doing those things we are criticising others for.”
Earlier, the workers told the NLC President that for over 10 years, unions in the Kogi State Polytechnics, Kogi State University, and the State Colleges of Education, Technology, and Nursing had been under prescription by the state government.
Other demands workers wanted the intervention of the NLC were the non-implementation of annual salary increases, non-provision of housing for workers, as well a shortage of teachers in primary and junior secondary schools, among others.
