By METROWATCH Reporter
President Bola Tinubu has appealed to the organised labour to give him more time to look into their grievances rather than embark on industrial action.
This was disclosed by Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, to State House Correspondents 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.
According to him, President Tinubu appealed that he is new in office and needs 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 some of those issues to the Chief of Staff to look at them one after the other.
“I believe the next coming days, some concerted actions will be taken.”
The Speaker 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 series of conditions that they gave, that we felt we need to share with the president,” he said.
The Speaker maintained that the purpose of the visit to the presidential villa on Wednesday was to intimate the President of the progress made with the doctors association.
He also disclosed that the House leadership also used the visit for familiarity purposes as they had met with the president since they emerged leaders.
Asked why the second visit in 24 hours to the State House, Abbas said: “Yesterday’s visit was primarily to brief Mr President on our engagement with National Residents Doctors Association whom we got wind were planning to embark on strike.
“So, we invited them and we persuaded to withdraw that plan. Sequel to the meetings we had with them, there were series of conditions that they gave that we felt that we need to share with Mr President. And that is what brought me yesterday, to intimate him on what we have discussed and the agreements so far reached them and issues that they have raised that need his attention.
“And today’s visit, as you can see, we are together, the whole leadership of the House is here. Since our election, as leaders of 10th House of Representatives, we didn’t come formally to present them to Mr President.
“So, today, we requested for this audience primarily to bring and introduce them for him to get to know them and for them to get to know him. That’s just what we are here for.”
Asked what the next step is since the House intervention didn’t them them from declaring industrial action, he said: “Well, it’s a work in progress. I’m sure some of the issues that they have raised, if we can be able to meet some of their expectations halfway of which we are on it, we already set up an adhoc committee chaired by the Majority Leader of the House to look at those issues.
“I’m sure one or two interventions in their areas of concern, we will prevail on them to come back to the negotiating table and also accept to withdraw that strike.”
Asked what the House was doing to halt the August 2 protest by organised NLC, Abbas said: “In the same manner, same way, we will also invite them to come and sit so that we hear their grievances and then we follow the same pattern of engaging and persuading them to give us a little time so that we can be able to meet their expectations.”
Meanwhile, the President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, has insisted that the August 2nd protest date stands if nothing is done to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians brought about by increase in the price of PMS.
Speaking to State House Correspondents after meeting with Federal Government’s Steering Committee on Palliatives led by the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen.
Asked the outcome of the meeting, Ajaero said: “Well the outcome is very brief.
We met based on N520 increase and the committee that was set based on that and we agreed to to work to realise the objectives that was set during the last moment.”
Asked organised Labour position on the palliatives yet to be provided, the NLC President said: “The two centers have made their position known and is before Nigerians, the TUC, the NLC, our position is known. And it’s public knowledge.”
Asked if Labour was going ahead with August 2nd plan protests if the federal government doesn’t reverse anti-labour policies, he said: “Well, policies? I wouldn’t know, we are going ahead with the protest because we have to be emphatic on what we put in our communique, to say we’re commencing protests from the 2nd.”
Asked if that means the organised Labour was not
satisfied with the outcome of Wednesday’s meeting, Ajaero said: “This meeting has no relationship with the….remember and I want you to be careful about it. There is 520 increment, which gave birth to this meeting. Nobody is discussing about 617 as at now and this meeting didn’t have the competence to address that. Is that clear? There are two issues, does that make sense?”
The President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Festus Osifo, asked if he was satisfied with the outcome of the meeting said: “Okay, we’ve had a meeting and the meeting majorly is to listen to the presentations that is coming from the Secretariat of the steering committee, so they have made presentation to us. We made our robust inputs into it.
“Some of the things they presented we did not agree with them. So the areas we did not agree, we also made our imputes known because when you come to such meeting it is for government or its representatives to do a presentation. But it’s left for us to either agree or disagree.
“So during the meeting, we gave them sufficient feedback. And they also agreed to go and look at those feedbacks and get back to us on Friday.”
The TUC president declined to mention the areas of disagreement saying, “We are still discussing, I don’t think it is quite good for us to be discussing those particular subjects now more so because they told us that they will come back to us by Friday and Friday is about 48 hours away.
“So it is better we hold on, we wait till Friday for them to give us a feedback then we can go into the nitty gritty.”
Asked to summarized what labour really wants government from government, Osifo said: “What we want government to do is to address the plight of Nigerians. Nigerians are suffering, just as we said in our press conference few days ago, that Nigerians are suffering, that things are hard, that things are difficult, because things are difficult today in Nigeria, you must roll up programmes that will ameliorate the suffering, because at the end of the day, it is about Nigerians, because government exists in order to take care of the downtrodden, majorly.
“So all we are saying is that government must as a matter of urgency, because we don’t have we don’t have that time anymore. So as a matter of urgency must roll out various programs that will create alternative to PMS, and also palliatives.
“So these are the two focus, alternative to PMS, that is about the CNG and also the palliatives that must be brought out to ameliorate these sufferings Nigerians are passing through.”
Asked the timeline, he said: “We are meeting again on Friday. So, when we meet on Friday, we will hear from them, they can tell us that by Monday morning, they will start rolling them out here so we meet on Friday.”
However, the Special Adviser Verheijen, who spoke on the government side progress had been made in the discussion.
She explained: “We’ve agreed to continue to make progress. It was a very productive meeting. The focus was really around how we fasttrack a lot of the interventions that will bring relief, particularly around CNG, mass transportation, cleaner energy, transportation, and reduce the impact of the cost of transportation, the increased cost of transportation.
“So we’ve made good progress. And we’re going to continue to do so and so that we can start rolling out these opportunities and this relief and measures as quickly as possible.”
On why government is dragging its feet in rolling out palliatives, she said: “We have to get it right. It’s important that we do this well, and we keep our promises. So, it’s important that whatever is announced actually gets done. Because we don’t want to make big announcements that will continue to lose people’s trust.
“It’s important that we build trust, and that most of the announcements and the plans that we roll out are credible and impactful.”
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is working assiduously to address all of these issues. And as quickly as he can. He’s very empathetic, he is concerned about it, as you’ve seen all of us working round the clock here to make sure that we are able to announce these measures as quickly as possible. It’s a whole package of issues that we’re rolling out as quickly as possible,” the presidential aide assured.
