By Olasunkanmi Akoni

Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, has urged workers and labour unions in the country to shun the use of illegal strikes, especially during an election year to settle trade disputes between them and their employers as such acts affect productivity and employment drive of governments.

Meantime, the annual Worker‘s Day rally in Lagos was almost disrupted as students and Senior Staff Workers of the Lagos State University, LASU, and some civil society groups staged an unexpected  protest at the Onikan Stadium, Lagos Island, the rally ground , seeking for immediate reversal of the hike in tuition fees of the institution.

Gov. Fashola at 2014 workers’ day rally at Onikan Stadium)

The senior staff of LASU, including lecturers, numbering about 50, staged a peaceful protest round the venue, chanting anti government slogans with various placards with inscriptions condemning the hike in the tuition fees of the school.

The situation resulted in delays and intermittent stoppage at the rally, as armed policemen, led by the state‘s Commander of the Rapid Response Squad, Mr Hakeem Odumosu battled hard to bring the protesters under control. They had to use iron barriers to ward off the surging crowd.

Thousands of workers who had turned out for the rally, watched as some of the protesters attempted to force their way into the state box, where Governor Babatunde Fashola and other guests were sitting.

Other groups, such as the Joint Action Forum (JAF) and other civil society groups also, staged simultaneous protests against LASU fees, abduction of school girls in Borno State by Boko Haram insurgents, among other issues.

Dr Adekunle Idris,Chairman ASUU, LASU chapter who led the lecturers’ protest said they decided to mobilise to the rally to bring the problems of LASU to the public glare.

‘’ We are not here to celebrate because there is no cause for that. We can’t celebrate when our students pay exorbitant fees,the school fees that range between N197,000 to N300,000.We believe it is anti-people, and that is one of the reasons we are here.

‘’Also ,we are not happy with the issue of premature retirement of professors at LASU, and the poor career growth in form of slow promotion of staff .We are not happy with all of these because that is not how universities are run worldwide. ‘’he said. Idris urged the state government to take urgent steps to address some of the issues at LASU in order to salvage the institution from collapse.

Also speaking, Mr Abiodun Aremu, Co-ordinator of JAF said some of the workers and members of his group had decided to stage protests rather than celebrate in view of the problems in the system.

He said the abduction of no fewer than 200 school girls in Borno was disturbing and that it had dampened the mood of most Nigerians.

Aremu said Nigerians and workers would continue to be worried until the relevant agencies took practical steps to rescue the girls.

He condemned the tuition increase in LASU, describing it as a sure way to deny children of the poor access to education. “How many civil servants can afford to pay the fees of their children without stealing government’s money? The fee is outrageous and we are condemning it. “Public education should be accessible to everyone. There is nowhere in the world where universities are built only for the rich. LASU should not be an exception’ ‘he said.

On the issue of the State University (LASU), the Governor said he has met the students who were involved in the issue of increased school fees twice and that he has explained the circumstances and reasons that informed the increases asking them to proffer alternatives to the problem with both parties resolving to have a middle ground.

Fashola reacts

Governor Fashola said contrary to the impression created by some sponsored protesters at the rally about the issue at LASU, he received a reply from the students whom he met a day before the rally and that the content of their letter would be presented to the State Executive Council for consideration.While speaking on the significance of past May Day celebrations, the governor said in the past 20 years there had been no remarkable difference in the manner of May Day celebrations and called for mindset change that would occasion a sense of originality and creativity.

He however, commended the Nigerian workers for their contributions to nation building, saying they are the engine of the nation‘s development. Fashola , urged workers to use the opportunity of the Workers‘ Day anniversary to see how they could help to further move the country forward rather than staging protests and strikes.

According to him: “The mind set must change. There must be a sense of originality and creativity. I have listened here to so many speeches that government needs to do this and that, who really is government? If we do not understand it, am only one member of government am the leader of government but I am not government.”

On strike

He continued:  “So for me, as someone has suggested, that I don’t like strikes, there is nothing offensive to me about strikes, what I have advocated year after year is that the power to strike is a very potent weapon and it must be used very sparingly and discretionarily and if you use it everyday, after awhile it would lose its efficacy.

What I do not like is the illegal strikes because your right to strike as a weapon of negotiation is based on the fact that there is genuine trade dispute.

“We know that some strikes have gone for things that do not qualify as a trade dispute, that is an illegal strike, so if one group of people supports those kinds of strikes thinking that it makes government uncomfortable, ultimately, all of us will suffer.

“If we talk about unemployment today, nobody can divorce employment and unemployment with productivity and lack of it. So, everytme you shut down the system you are not helping the capacity to employ because you have shut down production. Those really are the issues.

“For me we have seen governments lose elections in Nigeria because labour strikes were orchestrated to defeat those governments by one party. But go and check the records of history the party who supported illegal strikes do well after they gain power , the truth is that they did not because it is a whirlwind  it will turn back to hunt those who incite it.

“So you may ask, what should we do?, I think first of all, we should agree to fight the scourge of insecurity under one flag, the Green White Green Flag, lets everyone  for now subsumes his flag in whatever colour and let us rally together not as  Yoruba men, as Ijaw people, not as Igbos not as Hausas, but as Nigerians who rally under one flag, the Green White Green to defeat insecurity.

“Let us rise together under that coalition as Nigerians to condemn illegal strikes and to support any legal strike that lawfully supports and seeks to restore injury to aggrieved workers. But workers should not use strikes to blackmail government. There is a process also for convening a strike, how many workers participate in a motion that leads to the decision at an AGM to convene a strike. Because the process as I understand it that there must be a meeting, called for the purpose of staging a strike with that issue tabled as an agenda, with people voting , abstaining, or voting for or voting against and thereafter, a notice is given to the employer to say we have voted by this number against this number to convene a strike and we give you a number of days.

“In those instances, my experience has been there will be genuine negotiation to resolve problem. But when a strike is called because the secretary general or president of the union is angry with anybody in government and more than a significant number of these unions do not know why a strike is called, often time it becomes difficult even for the employer to understand what the problem is.

“There are records of strikes that had been called, people didn’t know what they were striking about and the house is divided, and ofcourse there had been strike that had been called for a very legitimate, single purpose and whenever those strikes had been called labour has always won. These are issues that all of us should look at, I dnt believe that elections should be won and lost on insecurity and on strikes, I think our elections should be won and lost on the records of performance on the government of the day when it comes to defend itself. So we can still have a useful electoral period an election period that is centred on issues.

“Unfortunately, over the last decades, an election year is a year of strikes, an election year is a year of violence but who are the people involved in the strikes and violence it is you and me. If we resolve here to change it and to subject our elections not to strikes or violence but to a very serious developmental issues about when we will have electricity, when there will be food on the table and about when healthcare will work, we will have one of the best elections this continent ever has ever produced.

“So as the election comes if anybody comes to tell you to vote or not to vote for any candidate of any party because the party of the candididate favours one ethnic  or religion ask that person how ethnicity and religion will create job for your children, ask that person, how religion will bring you electricity, ask that person how ethnicity will build your roads and how ethnicity will bring food to your table. Tell that person also, that you want to hear more about the developments and not about things that will add no value to your life.”

On LASU protest

Fashola explained:  “We have heard protest about wages and school fees, what people who came here did not tell you, is that I have met twice with those who wear the shoes, the students and we have agreed that we will find a middle ground. I can confirm to you now from our last meeting I told the reasons and the circumstances in which we took the decision that we took. There seem to be a better understanding of the choices that we have to make.

“And I challenged, that this is a matter that also affects your life I am giving you an opportunity as your governor to go and make a proposal to me as to what you have done if the choice was yours.

“I can now confirm to you that yesterday I received their letters, setting out their own version. Ofcourse, I have to go back to my Executive Council to review the proposals they brought forward and to communicate our own position to them, so I don’t if those who came here are students and I don’t know if they are representatives of the students.  If you talk to card carrying students of LASU they will tell you they have met with me, the first meeting lasted 45 minutes and the second meeting lasted for about two hours, so we are talking.”