President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday made a passionate appeal to organized labour to give him more time to look into their grievances rather than embark on industrial action.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, made the disclosure after he led members of his leadership to brief the president on the outcome of their engagement with the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), which has declared a nationwide strike action.
Abbas told state House correspondents that President Tinubu has pleaded that since he is new in office, he’d need time to evaluate the issues that are being raised by workers, over which he is 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, he also advised that we should channel those issues to the Chief of Staff to look at them one after the other.
“I believe that in the coming days, some concerted actions will be taken.”
He said the House leadership invited NARD following their intention to go on strike, saying that the lawmakers succeeded in persuading the union to shelve the plan.
“Sequel to the meeting we had with them, there were a series of conditions that they gave, that we felt we needed to share with the president,” he said.
He said the purpose of the visit to the presidential villa late Wednesday was to inform the president of the progress made with the doctors association.
Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijeh, met with leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress at the presidential villa to continue talks on palliatives to mitigate the impact of subsidy removal.
The steering committee discussed how stakeholders can expedite interventions to bring relief, particularly regarding Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), mass transportation, cleaner energy, and reducing transportation costs.
However, the President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, asserted that the organized labour would go ahead with a protest on August 2.
He stated that their position on the issue was known to the public and they are resolute in their plans for the protest.
Responding to the outcome of the meeting, he said, Well, the outcome is very brief. We met based on the N520 (fuel price) increase and the committee that was set based on that and we agreed to work to realize the objectives that were set during that moment.”
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