WORKERS IN EDO SUSPEND STRIKE AS OBA OF BENIN INTERVANE

Workers in Edo State on Monday suspended their one-week-old strike, following the intervention of the Oba of Benin, Omo N’oba Erediauwa. Erediauwa had on Friday last week held a meeting with the leaders of the state chapters of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress and Joint Action Committee, leading to the suspension of the strike. The labour leaders however demanded that their demands be met by the state government by the end of January 2014. The workers in heeding to Erediauwa’s pleas, however, said the Permanent Secretary in the state Ministry of Environment and Public utility, Major Lawrence Loye (retd.), be removed, over Friday’s clash between his aides and some labour leaders, where the state chairman of the NLC, Emma Ademokun, sustained injuries to the head and other parts of the body. Ademokun during a press conference in Benin, said labour had met with government four times within the last week, where he said some agreements were reached, adding that the Oba’s intervention also led to the suspension of the planned one-week protest, which would have started from Monday. The workers, however, expressed their disappointment with the way Governor Adams Oshiomhole had so far handled labour-related matters in the state. They urged the government to “learn to attend to labour issues promptly so as to nip crisis in the bud.