NLC, others tell El-Rufai to reinstate sacked LG workers

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has asked Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, to immediately rescind his decision to sack civil servants in 23 local councils, as criticisms by stakeholders trailed the order.

NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, in a protest letter addressed to the governor at the weekend, said the decision to lay off workers at this period of great national challenges was insensitive and morally wrong, adding that labour would use every machinery it could muster to ensure that the workers were recalled.

El-Rufai had, last week, ordered that all public servants on level 14 and above, and those from 50 years and above in the 23 local councils be relieved of their positions.

He further directed that officers on level one to six should be converted to casual workers. Wabba, however, stated: “This purge of Kaduna staff workforce with unjust, arbitrary and illegal mass sack, especially amid the great hardship occasioned by Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) is a poorly-conceived, extremely wrong, and a morally indefensible industrial policy.

“This policy also has very huge implication for the already parlous unemployment and security situation in Kaduna and the country at large.”

According to him, the pervading fear is that the security crisis in Kaduna will worsen when breadwinners are deprived of legitimate income and their families put in disarray.

He then urged the governor to “quickly reverse the so-called rationalisation and casualisation of Kaduna workers. If this unsavoury situation persists, organised labour will not hesitate to fall back on the lawful options available to workers to pursue justice in this matter.”

Meanwhile, former governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Isah Ashiru, has lampooned El-Rufai’s government policies, saying: “It must have, by now, been clear to everyone that the disengagement of workers has almost become a policy of the Kaduna State Government since the All Progressives Congress (APC) assumed power in 2015 as a result of which thousands of state government and local council workers have been laid off.

“If the number of the victims of the retrenchment policy is added to the number of people whose businesses have been destroyed, it can easily be seen that the number of those people who have been denied means of livelihood is frightening.”

He added that the payment of workers’ entitlements should be a priority of the state government, so that the sufferings of a lot of families could be alleviated.