Prior to their meeting with the president this evening, the two labour unions championing the strike which had in the last week paralysed the nation's economic activities, the NLC and the TUC had come out of their respective executive council meetings to harmonise their position, which stands on the fact that government should revert fuel price to N65 per litre or face a total shutdown of oil production and other economic activities in the country by Sunday midnight.
the two unions also agreed to present to the president in their meeting which just ended in a deadlock that apart from reverting to the pre-January 1, 2012 fuel price of N65 per litre, government should suspend the policy for three months during which an enlarged audit committee should be set up to determine the actual subsidy figure, the exact daily fuel consumption in the country, accurate crude oil export and the production capacity of the nation's refineries.
An adamant Jonathan was however said to have rejected all the options presented by labour and insisted on going ahead with the policy.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the meeting, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Abdulwaheed Omar and the President of Trade Union Congress (TUC), Peter Esele, said they were going to return to their different unions for further discussions.
According to Omar:"We are going to continue our deliberation at our organisation level and then maybe we will see the way forward."Asked if the meeting was deadlocked he said, " Not deadlocked, but we have not reached a compromise".
Asked if labour had shifted ground as promised, Omar said, "We are going to meet with our organs, then we inform Nigerians.
Like we said the other time, it means the status quo remains".Asked the compromise labour wanted he said, "Let's go back to N65 then we agree on a new line of action". Asked if is N65 or nothing he said, "For now yes".
The meeting which started immediately the Labour leaders arrived at the first lady wing of the presidential villa ahead of schedule by exactly 7.20 p.m. did not end till about 11.10pm local time.
On the side of government in the meeting were Senate president
No comments:
Post a Comment