Akpabio Draws Battle Line with AKS Labour Chief

Akpabio Draws Battle Line with AKS Labour Chief

BY PAULINUS NNAH
The row between the Akwa Ibom State governor, Chief Godswill Obot Akpabio, and the state Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) chairman, Comrade Unyime Usoro, has reached a crescendo when penultimate weekend the state chief executive took their issue to the public domain.
Chief Akpabio who bared his mind on the issue and several others in the traditional New Year live chat on the AKBC radio and TV stations said that aside from accusing him of being “labour-unfriendly”, the NLC boss in the state wanted him to “begin to speculate on salaries and emoluments of staff by doing bogus increases to massage the ego of an NLC chairman, and yet the so-called bloated increases are not sustainable when the money is not there….
“You don’t have to because of unionism, you now come down force the government, blackmail the government into bloating something up….
“The only way I could make you happy is to speculate on the future welfare of the worker that will make you happy. And that’s not for me.”
Governor Akpabio who took time to enumerate his labour-friendly policies and services in his administration so far stressed that he had re-introduced in-service training in the state civil service while the trainee would still receive salary, and had introduced foreign training to Canada, London, etc. for the workforce in the state to be properly trained, adding that “I have not seen where we have owed one naira to any civil servant. We have done our best to make sure that we pay salaries as at when due.”
While recalling that he was the first and only governor to consent to the payment of N18,000 minimum wage, Chief Akpabio noted that a director in the state takes home about N240,000 salary package, as workers on levels 1-6 and levels 7-14 have had about 60% increase in their salary.
“As for me, any opportunity to give money to an Akwa Ibom person is a wonderful opportunity because I like our situation to change. And guess how much I have released for even arrears of payment of the arrears of this N18,000 alone. From September to December government has disbursed over N16 billion, N16 billion given to the workers. And after they have received N16 billion, then the chairman of NLC, for personal reasons, came to tell me that he is going to call out the workers to close down the state because the governor is not labour-friendly, just because the state budget that has 80% capital 20% recurrent expenditures,” he remarked.
Accusing the Comrade Usoro of threats to call out the Akwa Ibom workers to go on strike and which in effect he said would mean suffering the workers and the people in the state, which could “force government to retrench Akwa Ibom worker as being the responsibility of the NLC chairman,” he noted that “I think it is something we should sit down to dialogue. The Akwa Ibom workers should be interested in this. And if need be, this is an opportunity to address the Akwa Ibom workers, then have a town hall dialogue with them, because it is important to know the kind of union that they elect; because you elect a union that at the end of the day government is forced by your union to rationalize the workforce in the state. 
“And many of them that would have lost their jobs would have to go to the home of the NLC chairman to go and ask him to give you job. This is very important for me. 
“I worry about a labour union that comes to my office to sign an MOU on payment of N18,000 minimum wage and twenty-four hours later goes to have meeting with the opposition. And then goes to address the press that ‘that thing we signed we have rescinded it’. 
“Even the national leadership of NLC came to Akwa Ibom State and condemned it and said ‘this is not done in labour movement. You signed an MOU with government, government has started implementing the minimum wage, then you go back and called a strike….’
“So for me, I don’t want to run an administration and work with a group of people who take decisions on the spur of the moment.” 
While expressing serious disappointment in the state chairman of NLC, the governor sounded that “I must say it publicly, and also want the workers to understand that…, all the information that he’s going to churn out into the market, into the internet and all that, I wish him luck. But I have my facts and I want the people to know that if there is any person in this country that is interested in the welfare of workers, it is me. 
“But if he’s going to take them out on strike, I wish him luck, and I say let’s go on strike and let’s see who will win.”
Meanwhile, Weekly Insight’s investigation confirmed that in tandem with the warning by state NLC boss, Comrade Unyime Usoro, the state workforce has since commenced strike action, as pockets of NLC members and members of other allied bodies were seen last Friday picketing at the main gate of Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat in Uyo, with mobile police tank and personnel were also seen on guard in the area