Ogun workers to down tools on Thursday over minimum wage

• My govt committed to a fair deal for women, says Abiodun
• The nursing school trains students on entrepreneurship

Organised Labour in Ogun State has directed state and council workers to embark on two-day warning strike for alleged government’s refusal to negotiate and implement the minimum wage.

The organised labour comprises the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Joint Negotiating Council (JNC).

At a joint press conference in Abeokuta yesterday, the three unions insisted that the directive became inevitable because all their efforts to get the government to set up a committee to determine the “consequential adjustment” of the new minimum wage had been bluffed.

NLC chairman in the state, Bankole Emmanuel, who spoke on behalf of the TUC chairman, Fajobi Olubunmi, and JNC chairman, Folorunso Olanrewaju, said all their correspondences to the government for negotiation had not been replied. “Rather, we are treated with menus of deceits and apparent misinformation.”

But the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Governor, Kunle Somorin, described the planned strike as uncalled for, as “government is doing everything possible to the meet workers’ demand.”

Somorin said the government had assured the workers that the committee they requested would soon be set up.

He appealed to the workers not to do anything to disturb the industrial peace in the state.

Meanwhile, Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun assured that more women would be brought into the state executive council, as well as agencies and boards in the state.

Abiodun, who noted that the recently released commissioners’ list was not exhaustive, said that new commissionership positions reserved exclusively for women would be unveiled shortly.

The governor, who gave this assurance in a statement in Abeokuta yesterday, said the interest of women remained at the forefront of his administration’s agenda and that his promise that women would play a pivotal role in his administration remained irreversible.

He pointed out that the choice of Mrs. Noimot Salako-Oyedele as his deputy was to drive women-focused programmes in the state, adding that already a number of his cabinet members were women.

In another development students across the country have been urged to acquire vocational skills to complement their desired professions, in order not to over-burden their monthly salary.

The Permanent Secretary, Ogun State Ministry of Health, Dr. Adesanya Ayinde, made this known during the entrepreneurial training for the final year students of the School of Nursing, Idi-Aba, Abeokuta.

Ayinde said that the rate of unemployment in Nigeria and over-dependence of the younger ones on non-existent white-collar jobs were enough reasons to acquire more practical skills.

He commended the leadership of the nursing school for such a laudable initiative.

According to him, apart from regular monthly salary, alternative sources of income relieves every individual of any form of financial burden, adding that part-time skill could later become a full-time vocation that one would be happy with.

In her remarks, principal of the School of Nursing, Mrs. Dele Alonge, disclosed that one of the new things being brought into the curriculum by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) was entrepreneurship study, which involves both theory and practical, as a compulsory course.

The students were trained in the making of soap, pastries, headgear and make-over.