Kaduna NLC Strike: You Abandoned Me – El-Rufai Tells Governors Forum

• Accuses an unnamed governor of sponsoring the NLC strike
  

BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State on Wednesday night extended his anger to his colleagues in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), accusing them of abandoning him to the fangs of the Nigeria Labour Congress that completely shut down his State.

El-Rufai, who made the accusation during a virtual meeting of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum on Wednesday also accused a governor he refused to name as having provided the mobilisation funds for the NLC to destabilise Kaduna State.

The NLC on Monday mobilized workers in the state and commenced a five-day strike over what they described as El-Rufai administration’s arbitrariness and highhandedness in carrying out retrenchment of about 45,000 workers without recourse to labour laws, stressing that El-Rufai is running the state like his private enterprise and treating workers as if they are his slaves.

The NLC-led strike completely paralyzed activities in the state even as threats by the State government failed woefully to make any impact, including Governor El-Rufai declaring the NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba wanted on allegation of economic sabotage.

Speaking at the virtual meeting of the NGF, Governor El-Rufai said he did not get the needed support from the governors in spite of the fact that he is one of them.

In the words of El-Rufai; “The least I expect from the Nigeria Governors Forum is unequivocal and unqualified support. I didn’t see that in that statement. I am being very blunt. I could pretend and be political and just smile and say it was alright but it is not. But I am used to fighting my own battles”.

El-Rufai thereafter said that labour unions are the greatest threat to Nigeria and urged governors to come together to tackle their menace in order to prevent the country from degenerating further.

He then boasted; “We will fight this. We are breaking them and they will leave town ashamed. I will not give them one inch because this is not about unionism.

“If it is about rights of workers, Kaduna is not the only state that has retrenched workers. Kaduna is not a state owing salaries. Kaduna is not a state failing to pay minimum wage. Kaduna is not a state owing years of pension arrears. Why didn’t they go there?

“Kaduna was targeted for political reasons and they are being financed by certain political interests, but we will fight them. We will defeat them but as the Governor of Bayelsa said, and since he has brought that subject, I have a responsibility to put it through, unless we collectively address this monster, it will consume all of us.

“After this, they (NLC) will never come back to Kaduna. They will never come back, you will see. They will go to other states. It is up to the forum to decide on what to do, but we are here, we are ready, we will end this by the grace of God.

“I would like to inform the forum that one of our colleagues, a state governor actually gave the NLC money to come to Kaduna to do this because people think everything is politics. This is not politics. This is a monster that will consume all of us. It will not consume Kaduna I’m confident of that.”

Chairman of the NGF, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, had on Monday issued a statement and appealed to the NLC to exercise restraint in its engagement with the Kaduna State Government.

Kayode stated; “The NGF calls for cautious introspection on the part of Labour as no meaningful progress of any kind has ever been achieved in an atmosphere of conflict and chaos.”

But El-Rufai was not impressed with the statement of the NGF as he categorically said; “That press release with the greatest respect was unhelpful. It was unhelpful. It said nothing. It was trying to play both sides.”

Earlier, the Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, expressed displeasure over the lack of support for El-Rufai during the NLC strike which paralyzed activities in the State.

Diri said that what El-Rufai was dealing with may soon catch up with other states if the situation was not properly managed, saying; “We are not running a unitary system of government. We are a federation. We were elected to govern different states. We owe our people accountability not the NLC, we should take a common stand.”