If the assertions of the Nigerian Labour Congress president is true, that most state governors live permanently in Abuja, then, that’s alarming! Because that would clearly shows the interest of the people isn’t in their heart, but selfish aggrandizement while building a substandard system that they (governors), can’t live in, but expects the people they’re governing to remain there.
Mr. Joe Ajaero, lamented on Monday, the absence of states governors at their duty posts, while expressing the lack of powers by any governor to ban labour unions in their state, while establishing that union practice falls under the executive legislative list in the Constitution.
This is just as he lamented that most governors now live permanently in Abuja at the detriment of their states.
While reacting to the proscription of labour unions in state-owned tertiary institutions by Yaya Bello, the immediate past Kogi State Governor, Joe Ajaero, at a town hall meeting with workers at the NLC Secretariat, Lokoja, the state capital, condemned the action.
The NLC president, who expressed surprise that such a thing exists in the state, said the state government lacked the right to proscribe unions under the exclusive legislative list.
Ajaero expressed dissatisfaction at how most governors have abandon their states and live permanently in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, living the people they were supposed to govern to face hardship.
The Labour head added that the NLC leadership is in Kogi State to deliver and inaugurate 10 Compressed Natural Gas buses provided to the state chapter of the congress to ease transportation problems.
Ajaero, who noted that the leadership had visited five zones, regretted that the governors were always absent, having travelled to Abuja.
While stressing that workers were feeling the heat of the harsh economic realities, with the high cost of living, Ajaero said for government to contemplate increasing tariff on telecom, was pushing workers too far.
He said the leadership would take to the governor the problems and demands workers reeled out, even as he said of the five zones visited, it was only in one the governor was around.
Ajaero said, “However, there is a problem we are having in trends because most governors are now living permanently in Abuja. We have moved to about five zones, Kogi is about the fifth zone. We have met governors in only one state. Each time you go there, they are in Abuja and this is affecting governance.
“I think we should be able to manage the centre and the units, so people will have the feeling of democracy, the dividend of democracy so that people can talk to their leaders.
“So, if we capture all these things, the information you are going to give us will be conditional if the governor is around. If he’s around, we will convey your information to him. If he’s not around, whosoever he’s going to send, we pass it to him.”
He said that Kogi State was strategic to the congress because it had union leaders as governor and deputy, adding that Governor Usman Ododo was one of his officials in Niger State and the deputy, an official of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT.
He said, “So, we want to make this as a town hall meeting to listen to you to know what has been done and what has not been done properly, so we take it to them.
“To us, it is like homecoming. We want to come and interact with them to find out whether they are doing those things we are criticising others for.”
Earlier, the workers told the NLC President that for over 10 years, unions in the Kogi State Polytechnics, Kogi State University, and the State Colleges of Education, Technology, and Nursing had been under proscription by the state government.
Other demands workers wanted the intervention of the NLC were non- implementation of annual salary increase, non-provision of housing for workers, as well as shortage of teachers in primary and junior secondary schools, among others.
