The continued closure of the offices of the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) by the Lagos State government will result in the Trade Union Congress (TUC) embarking on a protest, which might snowball into a full strike.

The President of the national umbrella body of workers, Festus Osifo, who disclosed this in Abuja yesterday, berated the Lagos State government for ignoring the rulings of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), Lagos division, which ordered the reopening of the shut premises.

He explained: “We are going to carry out a protest in Lagos once again. Then after that protest, if we do not see a solution in sight, there is going to be a total shutdown in Lagos State. If this call is not yielded, then we will now have no further option than to ask our members working in Lagos to withdraw their services for two weeks.”

He added that the TUC has informed the Department of State Service (DSS), Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and other security agencies to ensure adequate security is provided for the protesters.

Osifo added: “So for us to carry out a successful protest in Lagos on Monday next week, we have informed the Director General of DSS, the IGP, and the National Security Adviser. The reason is that we want them to provide us with adequate security.”

He said the labour centre has directed all its various affiliates to proceed to Lagos this weekend. Speaking on the judgment, Osifo said the ruling, which was delivered on April 28, 2023, was unequivocal on the immediate reopening of the shut offices.

His words: “The judgment was expressly stated that the shut offices should be open, and the Lagos State Government does not have rights to proscribe any union, a registered union at that. So, we felt that this matter had been laid to rest, but we watched for a while. The judgment of the court was not complied with, so we now decided to write to the Lagos State Government, trying to push them to enforce the decision of the court. So, on May 22, this year, we wrote to Lagos State Government, drawing their attention to the pronouncement of the court. But unfortunately, they did not yield to this.”

On why the TUC is organising yet another protest soon after holding one, Osifo explained that the protests and strike may persist until the shut offices are reopened.

He added: “So in the second week of June, we had a protest in Lagos. After that protest, they called us, and then there were no commissioners, so the permanent secretaries in the various ministries that were affected reached out to us, and we had a meeting with them.

“We thought we were already finding solutions to this problem because they promised us that they were going to pass our message to the government, and they promised us that these issues would be resolved. So we started discussions, and after the first meeting, a follow-up meeting was also held, where we were thinking that we were almost resolving this challenge. But unfortunately, the status quo remained.”