Obi free to leave LP, says NLC
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The leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress has vowed not to rest until it unseat Julius Abure as national chairman of the Labour Party.
Disclosing this in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, the NLC spokesman, Benson Upah, said that despite the ‘illegal’ national convention that returned Abure to office, the union would never confer legitimacy or give recognition to his leadership.
He said, “Our position on this matter is clear and has not changed. Abure remains unknown to us. It is not a question of removal. As far as we know, he does not exist.”
The development is coming at a time when a group of retired workers under the aegis of Lagos Assembly of Labour Veterans and Trade Unionists also called for the resignation of the embattled national chairman of the party and the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, over their contentious leadership struggle.
The party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, also seems to be at loggerheads with the leadership of the LP over the manner it conducted the convention in Nnewi, Anambra State, despite his plea for wider consultation.
The former Anambra governor had expressed his frustrations at an X (formerly Twitter) Space session organised by Parallel Facts last Friday night.
While explaining his absence at the national convention that got Julius Abure re-elected as the party’s national chairman, Obi told his audience that he didn’t attend the event because the party’s leadership failed to heed his appeal for wider consultation with relevant stakeholders before the exercise.
Kidnapped cleric released, police mum on ransom payment
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The Kogi State Police Command has confirmed the release of the Chief Imam of Iyara in the Ijumu Local Government Area of the state, Sheikh Quasim Musa.
The Sheikh was said to have been abducted by gunmen on Monday, 25, March 2024 at his house in Ilukpa, Iyara.
The gunmen were said to have come in a commando style shooting sporadically into the air before taking their victim to an unknown destination.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, William Aya, who confirmed the release said, “This is to inform you that, the Chief Imam of Iyara Central Mosque, Alhaji Qasim Musa, who was earlier kidnapped regained his freedom yesterday (Friday) night.
He was, however, silent on whether or not a ransom was paid to secure his release.”
Govt should fund existing varsities, not creating new ones – SSANU
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Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, University of Ilorin chapter, Olushola Falowo, speaks to DANIEL AYANTOYE on the union’s strike and disagreement with the Federal Government
Your union recently ended a seven-day warning strike. Don’t you think this would have affected academic activities and the students?
There is no way it would not have affected academic activities and that was why SSANU as a union was reluctant to go on strike. I am very sure that you must have been following events from last month. For more than a month now, the national leadership of SSANU has been in the media, trying to avert the strike. You can imagine that the salary that we are paid currently was last reviewed in 2009. And when that 2009 agreement was concluded, they said the agreement would be reviewed every three years. You can now see how many three years are between 2009 and 2024.
Now, if you compare the value of money, how much was transportation fare in 2009 and how much is it now? How much was a bag of rice in 2009 and how much is it now? If you remember very well, in 2009, a bag of rice was N6,000. Even before 2009, it was N4,000. But I can remember that I bought it for N6,000. That same bag is over N90,000 now. How do you expect somebody who is on this kind of salary to cope in this period? You know how much the pump price of petrol was in 2009 and how much it has become now. So, this is one reason why we said the government of Nigeria should be more sensitive to the welfare of workers. It is the insensitivity of the Nigerian government that led us to the level that we are today.
There were concerns about the effect of the strike on students, especially with what recently happened at the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, where a student who had asthma, was said to have died because he could not be taken to the clinic as the facility was under lock and key as a result of the strike. What is your take on that?
It is quite unfortunate, and it is sad. We pray that God will give the family the fortitude to bear the loss. It is not something that we are happy about. But let’s come to think of it, in a university where there are four unions, three of these unions are the ones that do everything in the university except to go to class and teach. They (the government) tried to use divide and rule and pay those who go to class which is the Academic Staff Union of Universities but left the three other unions without paying them. What is the government’s intention of doing that?
We continue to say it that there are saboteurs in the government of President Bola Tinubu. Some people somewhere don’t want this government to be successful. That is why we don’t know the people that are behind this payment. The information that we have is that the President approved a waiver to pay all the staff at the university. He did not say go and pay ASUU alone. Who took that decision to subvert the directive of the President? What is their intention? Unfortunately, the incident happened, and it is regrettable, but I don’t think we have a choice.
Only Senate can reverse Ningi’s suspension – Spokesperson
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Ningi was suspended by the Senate for alleging that the National Assembly padded the 2024 Renewed Hope Budget with the total sum of N3.7tn.
His suspension came after a motion by Senator Adeola Solomon (APC, Ogun West) moved against Ningi over a breach of privilege.
Prior to that time, Ningi had initially granted an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (Hausa Services) where he was quoted to have said that the President in connivance with the National Assembly was running two separate 2024 budgets; one was N28tn and another N25tn.
Two weeks into his suspension from the Senate, Ningi through his lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, wrote to the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, demanding his reinstatement into the Red Chamber and also threatened a lawsuit against the presiding officer.
In the letter addressed to the Senate President, Falana described Ningi’s suspension as “a breach of Section 111 of the Constitution and Article 13 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights Act.”
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