The industrial action embarked upon by the Osun chapter of the Nigeria Labour Union (NLC) has been attributed to an alleged “unguarded utterances “by the Governor of the state, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.
DAILY POST on Wednesday gathered that Governor Aregbesola had on Thursday, December 21 invited the leadership of the NLC to a meeting /dinner, purposely to fine-tune modality for the usage of the third tranche of the bail out funds, which is to the tune of N6.35bn.
The Governor in his address reportedly announced to the union leaders, his intention to continue with the “modulated salary scheme” in which grade level 8 and above in the civil service get part of their due salaries.
According to a source at the meeting, the labour leaders vehemently objected the position of the Governor, which expectedly infuriated him with a resultant response thereafter.
Aregbesola was quoted as saying: “You want to go on strike, fine, you can go ahead, I am not perturbed, I have less than a year to spend as a governor of the state, I am less concerned.”
“You think I will beg you not to go on strike, never, over my dead body, if you embark on this strike, it is my successor that will call you back not me,”Aregbesola said.
The outburst of the governor invariably provoked the labour leaders to the extent of ignoring their dinner as they dashed out of the meeting abruptly.
The unionists later reacted, by strangely addressing a press conference as early as 6:am on Friday morning, December 22, 2017, where they declared an indefinite strike, which was slated to commence on Wednesday, December 27, 2017.
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