LG crisis: Stop promoting labour unrest in Osun, APC warns NLC

The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the state chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Christopher Arapasopo, of promoting labour unrest in the state.

According to the major opposition party, Arapasopo is “grossly not being empathetic towards the plight of the members of the state National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) who have been on sympathy strike with the state Governor Ademola Adeleke for seven months running.”

A statement by the party’s Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, on Wednesday, indicated that “Arapasopo issued a press statement where he was commending the state NULGE for keeping up the sympathy strike with the Governor Adeleke-led administration.”

Reacting, Olabisi said it was disheartening that a labour leader could, “for suspected filthy lucre, shamefully offer to be a partner in promoting and encouraging the raging sympathy strike by the state NULGE which has subsequently been responsible for the avoidable suffering of some stakeholders at the grassroots level across the state.”

He stated, “In essence, what Arapasopo and his cohorts are canvassing is that the statutory monthly due allocations of the revered royal fathers in the state orchestrated by the senseless strike of the NULGE should continue.

“With the statement being made to be rolled out by the state NLC chairman on the lingering NULGE strike, it is pungently clear that Arapasopo is one of the foremost enemies of progress in Osun State.

“In a saner society, a labour leader like Arapasopo has no reason to stay a day longer in the office for wilfully mortgaging the future of the state NULGE for whatever might have been the attraction from his sponsor.”

He therefore called on the striking council workers to end their action and resume duties.

“Our appeal to the striking Osun State NULGE is that they should discountenance the apparently government-sponsored appeal of Arapasopo for sustaining the strike, as they are the ones who know where the shoes are pinching them,” he noted.