TUC backs NLC in response to Tinubu, says labour has ‘right to protest’

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has reacted to President Bola Tinubu’s jab, in which he advised labour unions to cease their demonstrations and hold off on entering politics until 2027.

The president at the Lagos Red Line project’s launch on Thursday, noted that the organised labour was not the sole voice for Nigerians.

But reacting to the President’s remarks on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday night, the President of the TUC, Festus Osifo, said members of his union are not politicians and that they have the right to protest.

The President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) Joe Ajaero had also earlier reacted to the president’s speech via a statement issued on Friday in which he told the president that the organised labour was interested in better living conditions for Nigerians and not his job.

Usifo said, “I listened to that comment yesterday where he said that we should wait for 2027 if we want to contest for elections. I could speak for Trade Union Congress, we are not politicians, we are unionists, it is our right to protest – it is a fundamental right of every single Nigeria,” Osifo said.

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“So we don’t have issues with protests, when need be, people will exercise their rights and people must protest. In terms of waiting till 2027 to enter into politics, I don’t think that is something we could dabble into because I as an individual I am not a card-carrying member of any political party.

“What I am interested in is the welfare of my members and indeed the entire Nigerian masses. So, what the president said for me is alien to us because the right to protest and the right to strike is that of the workers.

“There are condition precedents, for the fact that you are going on protest or strike, there are some things that led to it, those fundamental issues must be addressed.”

Osifo also addressed criticism that the TUC abandoned the NLC by declining to participate in Tuesday’s final demonstration against hardship.

According to him, the TUC could not be considered to have opted out because it was never a part of any arrangement to go on protest.

“I’ll just explain exactly what happened to you. Now, you see when you say somebody opts out from a process, it means that the person was in before, it means that there was an agreement to do something.

“When there is an agreement to do something at the last minute, you will not say I am not doing again. That is opting out, then you can use the word sold out. But in this scenario, there wasn’t any agreement to do anything.

“We did not have any conversation; nobody even mentioned it to us that this is the direction to go. That conversation never took place. So as long as that also never took place, we never opt out of anything. If there was an initial agreement that let’s go for a protest, then we now say we are not going for that protest.

“You could call that opt out, you could call that sold out, you could call that anything. But in this scenario, there was no understanding at all. In fact, there was no discussion that could have even led to any understanding,” he said.

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