‘Please Give Us Time’- FG Begs Organised Labour Over 14-Day Strike Ultimatum

The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, has pleaded with the Organised Labour to suspend the 14-day ultimatum given to the federal government.

The plea comes barely 24 hours after organised labour accused the federal government of refusing to uphold the October 2023 agreement to ease the hardship felt by Nigerians over the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the naira.

THE WHISTLER reported that organised labour had declared it would begin a nationwide strike in the next 14 days if those agreements were not implemented.

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja on Friday, Onyejeocha said, “These agreements, all of them are not going to be done the same day. Some can’t be done in two, three or four months. Like the CNG, it is a process that’s ongoing, and I’ve just told Nigerians what the CNG group has been doing in the last four months.

“We’ve commenced deliveries on those agreements. We’ve been reaching out to organised labour because the President is committed to these agreements, he has good faith, that’s why we don’t want anybody to shut down the economy at any time because it will affect everybody.

“It’s like you want to pull down the whole roof of a house, meanwhile, you’re still inside the roof. We’re not shying away from implementing the agreements we’ve entered with the organised labour.”

Onyejeocha disclosed that the government, through the Ministry of Finance, procured up to 11,500 CNG vehicles, including buses and tricycles, which would be rolled out by President Bola Tinubu soon.

According to her, the ministry will partner with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) to ensure that the visitation to the refineries for on-the-spot assessment of the refineries is done without further delay.

She added, “In line with the government’s ongoing commitment to improving the welfare of Nigerians, provisions have also been made for an initial 55,000 CNG conversion kits as part of the commencement of the autogas conversion programme.

“Development of the state-of-the-art CNG conversion centres nationwide is also ongoing with the aim to deliver one million converted bi-fuel CNG/PMS vehicles to enable transporters and mass transit operators to convert their vehicles that run on PMS to gas (which is forty to fifty percent cheaper than PMS).”