Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has suspended its planned nationwide strike that would have started today, Monday, September 28, in protest against the hike in pump price of fuel and electricity tariff.
Earlier, there were indications that the Federal Government and NLC might reach an agreement to avert the looming nationwide strike.
The Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo(SAN) tweeted that there was hope the industrial crisis might be avoided.
He stated on his verified Twitter handle(@fkeyamo): “Still negotiating with labour at exactly 12.34am. Some progress have been made. Concrete proposals on the table from both sides.
“Details being worked on by the temporary Secretariat. Gradually moving towards a point of convergence. Let’s hope….”
A source said that it is possible the tariff will be suspended for two weeks, but said nothing specific about fuel pump price.
The source also said a joint government/Labour committee will be set up to review the issues within those two weeks.
it was learnt that a communique is being hammered out, an indication that some sort of agreement had been arrived at.
The issue of pump price hike had links with IMF, the World Bank and other international finance bodies Nigeria is indebted to.
Keyamo later tweeted that “ FG & LABOUR reach agreement at 2:53am.
Deregulation to stay as Govt rolls out palliatives for labour (details in 2 weeks);
Electricity tariffs suspended by Govt for 2 weeks with a joint Committee headed by @fkeyamo to examine the justification for the new policy. Strike suspended .”
The National President of the Trade Union Congress, Quadri Olaleye, confirmed the development.
Olaleye said, “Definitely correct. We just left a press conference. We signed a document to suspend the action for two weeks for the government to implement those things that we agreed in the agreement. So, we are suspending for two weeks.
“We don’t need a notice again to reconvene if there is a need to do that. ”
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