The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on Friday, walked out of a scheduled meeting of the Presidential Steering Committee on subsidy palliatives at the Aso Villa, Abuja.
NLC president, Joe Ajaero, led his delegation to Femi Gbajabiamila, chief of staff’s office, venue of the scheduled meeting, but stormed out of the villa midway into the negotiation talks.
The steering committee met with the government delegation on Wednesday, and agreed to reconvene on Friday to get briefs from the three subcommittees set up to look into various demands by labour that will come in the form of palliatives to mitigate the effect of fuel subsidy removal on workers.
But the meeting could not continue as, according to some members of the committee, there was no quorum.
The labour union accused the federal government of using the meetings as a pretext to deceive Nigerians.
A source at the meeting confirmed that three subcommittees — mass transit, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and cash transfer, were supposed to be in attendance to brief the committee on how they plan to mitigate the effect of fuel subsidy removal on workers.
But labour claimed that government officials, who are members of the subcommittees, were nowhere to be found at the meeting.
The member of the committee from labour who spoke on the condition of anonymity said: “They are not prepared for the meeting. That’s the truth. The government representatives had insisted that the meeting should proceed even though no quorum was formed.
“They are using cover to deceive Nigerians. There are supposed to be three subcommittees, mass transit subcommittee, the CNG, and the cash transfer, to brief us, the steering committee but government was not prepared for the meeting.
“In their introductory remarks they made excuses and they wanted the meeting to continue, the meeting did not form a quorum. We are a people that operate on the basis of process. So, if there’s no quorum in a meeting what do you do? You will adjourn for lack of quorum,” the source told DailyTrust.
The member also disclosed that Gbajabiamila was not at the meeting and accused the federal government of treating the labour organisation “as children”.
It was, however, gathered that Gbajabiamila, had earlier waited for the labour representatives with other members of the team at his conference hall but later left to attend to other important official duties within the villa while others waited for the labour delegates’ arrival.
The representatives of the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) were reportedly delayed at the State House entrance gate for clearance.
