The officials of both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) Friday stormed out of the venue of the scheduled meeting between organised labour and the federal government over fuel subsidy palliatives.
The meeting scheduled to hold at the State House, Abuja was stalled after the labour Leaders left the venue of the meeting abruptly, accusing the government of insincerity.
TheHintsNews reports that the organised labour had already scheduled a nationwide protest for August 2 to press home their demands over the subsidy removal.
The President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, led his delegation to the Chief of Staff’s office, venue of the meeting of the Presidential Steering Committee on Subsidy Palliatives at about 5pm but almost immediately left the venue.
The Steering Committee was set up by the government to come up with palliatives that would cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal on workers.
The Steering Committee meeting had met with the government delegation on Wednesday where the two parties agreed to reconvene on Friday to get brief from the three subcommittees set up to look into various demands.
However, the meeting could not proceed because, according to some members of the Steering Committee, quorum was not formed as government officials were not on ground to meet with the labour leaders.
Against this background, the labour Leaders accused the federal government of using the meetings as a pretext to deceive Nigerians.
TheHintsNews gathered that the three subcommittees, the Mass Transit, the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Cash transfer sub-committees, were supposed to be present to brief the Steering Committee on the measures put in place to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal on the workers.
But labour leaders claimed that top government officials, who are members of the sub-committees were nowhere to be found.
The representative of labour and a member of the Steering Committee who preferred anonymity said the government representatives had insisted that the meeting should proceed even though no quorum was formed.
The source stated: “They are not prepared for the meeting. That’s the truth. They are using cover to deceive Nigerians. There are supposed to be three subcommittees, mass transit subcommittee, the CNG, and the cash transfer, to brief us, the steering committee but government was not prepared for the meeting.
“In their introductory remarks, they made excuses and they wanted the meeting to continue, the meeting did not form a quorum. We are a people that operate on the basis of process. So, if there’s no quorum in a meeting what do you do? You will adjourn for lack of quorum.”
Contrary to the position of labour, It was gathered that the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila had earlier waited for the labour delegation with other members of the team at his Conference Hall.
He later stepped out to attend to other official matters in the President’s office while other members of the government team were waiting for the organised labour to arrive.
The organised labour delegation was delayed at the State House entrance gate otherwise known as Mopol gate for clearance.
Checks revealed that the names of the labour delegation were not sent to the gate for clearance which led to their being delayed for the meeting.