By Our Reporter
A university lecturer has said the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress and the government of Kaduna State would do well to engage in talks so as to ensure that the currently suspended five-day strike embarked upon by labour leads to better government-labour relations.
This is the view of Professor Abubakar Isa Bappah of the Department of Public Law, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He further notes that the 5-day warning strike embarked upon by the NLC in Kaduna State is very unfortunate and was avoidable, advising the NLC and government to resolve it to that the people would not experience further inconveniences.
According to him, “I would advise Kaduna State government and the NLC to come to the negotiation table. The position of the Labour Act is very clear on this issue.”
Bappah further submits that “the 5-day warning strike embarked upon by the NLC in Kaduna state is very unfortunate and would have been avoidable if only Kaduna State Government had taken the right and appropriate steps to tackle the problem. Right now, it is the ordinary residents of Kaduna state they are bearing the brunt of the NLC strike as banks, hospitals, schools, electricity and petroleum Sectors, trains stations etc, have all remain shut.”
To him, the way forward for governments whose workforce takes up to 93%of the monthly allocation from the Federation Account is to enhance their revenue base or IGR. He says this is achievable by diversifying into agriculture, mining, manufacturing or other commercial enterprise rather than relying solely on the meager federal allocation for the socio-economic development of their states.
