Many workers who were embarrassed by the Aluko/Ayodele faction’s action, resisted them, insisting that they were not going on strike.
Wole Balogun, Ado Ekiti
Workers in Ekiti were yesterday divided over an allegedly planned strike by a faction of the workers’ union to press home their demand for immediate payment of their outstanding salaries.
While the current executive of the union, including Ade Adesanmi, Ekiti State chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC), and Odunayo Adesoye, state chairman, Trade Union Congress (TUC), and Bunmi Ajimoko, chairman of Ekiti chapter of Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), insisted that workers should not go on strike, the two former executive chairmen of the NLC and TUC, identified as Ayodeji Ayodele and Kolawole Aluko respectively, led a handful of their followers, to chase away workers who had already resumed for work at the state secretariat yesterday morning.
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Meanwhile, many of the workers who were embarrassed by the Aluko/Ayodele faction’s action, resisted them, insisting that they were not going on strike.
Ayodele and Aluko, the two former labour leaders under the auspices of Ekiti Workers Rescue Team, who began the protest at about 8.25 a.m. addressed the workers in front of the secretariat, where they ordered their members to leave their offices and begin an indefinite strike.
They said it was wrong for Governor Ayodele Fayose, who accused former governor Kayode Fayemi of insensitivity for owing one month salary in 2014 to have allegedly betrayed the trust and confidence the workers reposed in him.
The Ayodele/Aluko group also said they have dissolved the state executives of the NLC and TUC, headed by Adesanmi and Adesoye respectively, alleging that they have become passive and shying away from carrying out their responsibilities as labour leaders.
Adesanmi and Adesoye, in their reaction however, described the alleged dissolution as not only illegal, null and void but flies in the face of law as prescribed by International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Adesoye also denied the allegation that the labour leaders collected N14 million to mobilise for Fayose in the recent governorship election, saying the ex-labour leaders were only trying to malign their personalities to gain recognition from Fayemi.
On his part, Adesanmi decried the action of Ayodele and Aluko, and the others, saying: “They are looking for political appointments. Otherwise if that is not the case, I don’t know what their grievances are.”