Niger NLC Embarks on Indefinite Strike

Laleye Dipo in Minna

The ongoing strike action declared by the Niger state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has now turned into indefinite action.

This is just as students of the state origin in institutions of higher learning across the country have threatened to embark on road and street blockades over what they described as government’s neglect of the education sector.

The NLC in taking the  decision said government disregarded the ongoing negotiation over the payment of salaries to staff of  local governments when it paid out 70 per cent instead of full salaries to workers in Rafi local government .

The act, according to a statement by the State Chairman of the NLC, Comrade Yakubu Garba “ Negates the progress made in the ongoing negotiation as a result  the organised labour hereby notifies civil servants at state and the 25 LGAs that the ongoing 14-day warning strike is transmuted to indefinite strike action effective Wednesday 16th March 2022”

Garba said: “ The strike will remain in force until salaries of workers in 25 LGAs are in 100 per cent  gross component”.

Addressing a news conference  yesterday,  the President of the National Association of Niger State Students (NANISS) Comrade Saliha Buhari berated the state government for neglecting the education sector and especially the welfare of students and their teachers.

Buhari claimed Niger State Government in the last 39 months paid out scholarships only nine times with total financial volume of “ below N20 million for the entire population of about 1.2 million students outside the state.”

She also alleged that government has failed to pay the WAEC registration fees of its students “ making so many primary pupils and WAEC candidates to become hopeless, almost giving up their dreams because they are paying for crimes they didn’t commit.”

According to Buhari, asked the Niger State Government to declare “A state of Emergency on Education and address the challenges within a period of 6 working days otherwise they will embark on mass and peaceful demonstrations also blocking the city gate entrance of Minna and other local governments.”