Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, has pleaded with the organised labour in the country to give him more time to look into their grievances before embarking on industrial action.
This was disclosed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, after leading 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.
The speaker told newsmen after the meeting with President Tinubu that the president needs time to evaluate the issues that are being raised by workers.
“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 in the next coming days, some concerted actions will be taken.”
Abass said the House leadership invited NARD following their intention to go on strike.
He said 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.”
The House leadership’s meeting with the president came as Leaders of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, also met with the Steering Committee on palliatives set up by the federal government.
The meeting, however, was unable to convince the labour leaders to shelve their plan as they insisted on going ahead with the protest slated for August 2.
Source: Nigerian Tribune