The economic and social activities were on Monday shut down by the labour movement, as President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba led union leaders on protest against mass sack of workers by the Governor Nasir El-Rufai led Kaduna State Government.
Ahead of the commencement of the strike and street protest, affiliates of the NLC like the National Union of Electricity Employee (NUEE) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) had since Saturday cut supply of electricity and petroleum products to Kaduna State.
Even as the blackout and fuel scarcity persisted on Monday, banks, Kaduna International Airport and the Kaduna station of the Abuja-Kaduna railway among others were shut.
The labour union had before taking to the streets went round to lock key government ministries and agencies.
However, security personnel allegedly on the instruction of the state government forced open the main gate of the Kaduna State Secretariat, a complex housing about 10 ministries of the state government.
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Meanwhile, workers who were hitherto hanging around, remained outside in what looked like compliance with the NLC directive.
The protest took off around 9:40am from NLC secretariat at Golf Course road where Comrade Wabba addressed the workers on the essence of the strike action.
The protesters thereafter headed to the state House of Assembly where the protest terminated for the day.
Governor Nasir El-Rufai however described the labour strike and protest as acts of economic and social sabotage.
El-Rufai on his official Twitter handle @GovKaduna also said that, the conditions that compelled the state government to rightsize were not even mentioned by the labour leaders.
According to the Governor, “KDSG affirms that the conditions that compel it to rightsize are not altered by the NLC’s campaign of economic and social sabotage.
“The NLC showed in 2017 that it has no interest in public welfare, going violent over 21,780 failed teachers who KDSG replaced with 25,000” El-Rufai said.
Credit: The Nation