Speculations that the union is pushing for a strike because of its political ties to the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, have been refuted by Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
The NLC’s demand in response to President Bola Tinubu’s administration eliminating the gasoline subsidy, he continued, is not motivated by politics.
In an interview with TVC on Tuesday, Ajaero stated that political involvement by labour leaders has always been permitted and that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole helped form the current Labour Party.
Subsidy: Labour Party Can’t Tell Us What To Do – Joe Ajaero
Regarding the union’s relationship with the Labour Party, Ajaero argued that the NLC owes no one an explanation for backing Peter Obi in the elections of 2023. He also noted that, in contrast to other political parties in Nigeria, the Labour Party has given the average Nigerian a platform on which to realise their political aspirations.
The NLC president underlined that the push for strike action is not motivated by a political prejudice against the current government in power while responding to a question about why the congress seems to be more aggressive than the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in requesting a strike.
He said: “You wanted the NLC to be apolitical? because the NLC from day one has been forming political parties. From around 1918, there was a political party. In 1945. Michael Imodu and others formed a political party. In the 1960s, Imodu and Ekong formed another political party which was disrupted by the civil war. In 87, Pascal Abafia and others formed a political party.
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“The current Labour Party you are seeing was formed by Adams Oshiomhole in 2003 and it has been on till we met it. We don’t have any apology for having a political party because the two existing political parties can not accommodate us.
“Tell the people that are saying this of our affiliation; it is only in Labour Party that the son of a mechanic or a mechanic can run for election and I want to challenge you to prove that even the current National Assembly people who are okada riders through the Labour Party are there and it is a forum for us.
“So if anybody is talking of political affiliation, we don’t have any sympathy for it. All over the world, we have Labour Party.”
He concluded by saying the NLC is not running the Labour Party.
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