Nationwide strike: Lagos teachers send students back home

The public teachers in Lagos have joined their colleagues across the country in participating fully in the ongoing general strike organised by the workers.

The general industrial action was declared on Monday night by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), instructing workers of all their affiliated unions, including the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), to withdraw their services from midnight on the same day.

This protest was in response to the alleged brutalization of the NLC’s National President, Joe Ajaero, in Imo State recently.

Speaking on the development, the NUT chairman, Lagos State chapter, Mr Hassan Akintoye and the Secretary, Mr Gbenga Ayetoba, told Nigerian Tribune on Wednesday that NUT is one of the strongest affiliated unions of NLC and therefore has no option than to comply fully with the directive.

They said Lagos teachers would have fully joined the strike since Tuesday but for the union receiving the directive late on Monday.

“It was only yesterday (Tuesday) that we sent the circular round to our branches across the state directing our members to stay off work from today till further notice when we shall hear from our leaders,” Akintoye noted.

He pointed out that students would not have bothered to come to school on Wednesday if they had had enough information on Tuesday concerning the strike, adding that now that they are fully aware, they would stay off school from Thursday.

Hassan, however, explained that it was not as if Nigerian workers were hungry for strike as the action most times compounded the country’s economic problems but the political leaders and government agencies are not sensitive to the plights of the masses.

He restated that workers would not have declared industrial action if the Federal Government and its relevant agencies had taken action against those who brutalised the NLC President, Joe Ajaero in Imo.

He said if the personality of the President of NLC could not be respected but rather treated as nobody, no one else among workers is safe anywhere in the country.

“So, this ongoing strike,” he stressed, “is for justice to prevail on the matter. Ajaero attackers attacked the entire Nigerian workers and not only the president and they must all be fished out to face consequences of their action.”

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