The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, yesterday, said their members had been pushed to the wall by the policies and actions of Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, and warned, “Enough is enough”.
The two bodies also directed Kaduna State government workers to converge on the state secretariat of the NLC for a “super congress” where they said a decision would be taken on a matter that borders on the interference of the state government on union matters.
The two unions were reacting on the Verification Form given to workers with a clause on whether they wanted to belong to unions or not.
The President of NLC, Comrade Ayuba Waaba, and his TUC counterpart, Comrade Shehu Ayuba, addressed a joint press conference, yesterday in Kaduna on the issue.
“The workers’ verification exercise carried out by Kaduna State government was an aberration. This is the first time such an exercise would be carried out without a representative of workers. We have also heard of many things he has been doing here that are not in the interest of workers. But, we cannot understand why he now wants to interfere in the affairs of labour unions”.
“He tried breaking the ranks of workers when he was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, but we resisted him and he failed. One would have thought that he would have learnt his lessons. Yet, this is a man I respect as an intellectual.
“For the governor to produce a form and ask workers to indicate if they want to belong to the NLC, is a clear interference on union matters,” Wabba said.
