•Lalong directs security agents to crackdown on protesters in Plateau
The NLC has also warned that it might make the proposed three-day warning strike indefinite if federal government fails to resolve its protracted industrial dispute with public university workers that downed tools over five months ago. “The protest happening tomorrow is not a solidarity protest but a protest of NLC against government actions that lead to our universities being shut down and our kids staying at home instead of going to school. All the unions directly involved in the strike are NLC affiliates and their members are part of NLC.
Wabba said; “I never knew that the exchange rate has moved within a week from N630 to N670. This is very frightening and it erodes purchasing power of workers. There is no way we can continue in this direction and expect that there will be shared prosperity within workers and within the large portion of Nigerians that are in the lower echelon at the economic ladder.
“Is it about the class divide? It honestly beats some body’ s imagination. That is why all of these issues resonates that we need to engage politically. We have also realised the fact that they have used different approaches to divide Nigerians. She noted that all the affiliates have shown their readiness to gather at Ikeja under the bridge today.
Despite efforts to broker peace, government has failed. We are already fully mobilised, we will be on the streets using the protest to drum support for the parents of the students who have been home for this long period,” she said. In his contribution, the Zonal Coordinator ASUU, Lagos, Adelaja Odukoya, stressed that the protest would be for Nigerians.
He disclosed that the Nasarawa State governor had solicited for the NSUK ASUU to pull out of the national strike of the union when he invited the union alongside the university management for a tripartite meeting. “The ongoing attitude of government to the Memorandum of Agreements and Memorandum of Understandings has necessitated it on ASUU NSUK to no longer guarantee industrial harmony if the situation does not improve, especially when the ongoing national agitation and action are suspended.