Tinubu begs for more time to address Labour grievances

• President Bola Tinubu has urged organized labour to give him more time to investigate their complaints before going on strike
• The House leadership met with the president to inform him of the progress made with the doctors’ association
• Labour delegations led by NLC President Joe Ajaero and his TUC counterpart Festus Osifo attended a meeting with the federal government’s palliatives Steering Committee

President Bola Tinubu has urged organized labour to give him more time to investigate their complaints before going on strike.

Tajudeen Abbas, Speaker of the House of Representatives, made the announcement after leading members of his leadership to brief the president on the outcome of their negotiations with the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), which has declared a nationwide strike action.

After the meeting, Abbas told reporters that President Tinubu pleaded that he is new in office and needs time to evaluate the issues raised by workers on which he has yet to be briefed.

He said:

What he said is that he’s just coming on board. We should ask them and beg them to please give him a little more time. The things that they mentioned, he is completely unaware of them, he is yet to be briefed about all those issues.

But from what he heard from me, also advised that we should channel of those issues to the Chief of Staff to look at them one after the other.

I believe in the next coming days, some concerted actions will be taken.

He stated that the House leadership invited NARD following their intention to strike, and that the lawmakers were successful in convincing the union to abandon the plan.

“Sequel to the meeting we had with them, there were a series of conditions that they gave us that we felt we needed to share with the president,” he explained.

The Speaker insisted that the purpose of his Wednesday visit to the presidential villa was to inform the President of the progress made with the doctors’ association.

He revealed that the House leadership used the visit to get acquainted with the president, as they had not met with him since becoming leaders.

The House leadership’s meeting with the president came as leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) met with the federal government’s palliatives Steering Committee.

The meeting, however, was unable to persuade the labour leaders to abandon their plan, as they insisted on holding the protest on August 2.

Labour delegations led by NLC President Joe Ajaero and his TUC counterpart Festus Osifo attended the meeting, which also took place in the office of the Chief of Staff to the President.

It continued the previous meeting concerning the initial increase in the price of petroleum at the pump to N520 per litre.

After the meeting, Ajaero told reporters, “We are going ahead with the protest because we have to be emphatic on what we put in our communique, to say we’re starting protests on the 2nd.”

According to the TUC President, both sides listened to the presentations from the Steering Committee secretariat, and Labour provided input.

Some of the things they presented we did not agree with them. So, the areas we did not agree, we also made our impute known because when you come to such meeting it is for government or its representatives to do a presentation.

But it’s left for us to either agree or disagree. So, during the meeting, we gave them sufficient feedback. And they also agreed to go and look at those feedbacks and get back to us on Friday, Osifo stated.

However, the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Ms. Olu Verheijen, who spoke on the government side, had made progress in the discussion.

She explained:

We’ve agreed to continue to make progress. It was a very productive meeting. The focus was really around how we fasttrack a lot of the interventions that will bring relief, particularly around CNG, mass transportation, cleaner energy, transportation, and reduce the impact of the cost of transportation, the increased cost of transportation.

So we’ve made good progress. And we’re going to continue to do so and so that we can start rolling out these opportunities and this relief and measures as quickly as possible.

On why government is dragging its feet in rolling out palliatives, she said:

We have to get it right. It’s important that we do this well, and we keep our promises. So, it’s important that whatever is announced actually gets done. Because we don’t want to make big announcements that will continue to lose people’s trust.

It’s important that we build trust, and that most of the announcements and the plans that we roll out are credible and impactful.”

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is working assiduously to address all of these issues. And as quickly as he can. He’s very empathetic, he is concerned about it, as you’ve seen all of us working round the clock here to make sure that we are able to announce these measures as quickly as possible. It’s a whole package of issues that we’re rolling out as quickly as possible, the presidential aide assured.