‘Ajaero, ULC leaders against collective interest’

Factional labour leader Ayuba Wabba has accused the promoters of the United Labour Congress of Nigeria (ULC) of selfishness.
Reacting to ULC’s emergence, Wabba said: “Our attention has been drawn to news report in which Comrade Joe Ajaero, the General Secretary of NUEE, and Igwe Achese, President of NUPENG, claimed they have formed a new labour centre called the United Labour Congress (ULC).
“It will be recalled that following their defeat at the March 2015 rescheduled election in their bid to lead the NLC, these comrades have been parading themselves as ‘president, and ‘deputy president’ of NLC respectively.
“The congress would like to assure our members across the length and breadth of the country and the general public that the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress is committed to the unity of the working class in the country notwithstanding the latest declaration by Comrade Ajaero and Achese.
“We shall do everything within our power to preserve the unity and coherence of the labour movement which was handed down to us by our forebears in the movement.
“It will be recalled that our comrades in their ambition to lead Nigerian Workers in February, 2015, at the elections which would have concluded the 10th delegates conference of the NLC, disrupted and scattered the ballot papers that were already casted, in the full glare of the world.
“This was after delegates had voted to waive the requirement to allow Comrade Igwe Achese who has been campaigning to be President, to step down to deputy president position, and declare support for the candidacy of Joe Ajaero.
“At the rescheduled election held in March 2015, following the intervention of the veterans of our movement, and with the provision of adequate security, the plot of comrades Ajaero and Achese to disrupt the elections again once it was clear that their combined forces will not deliver them the leadership of Nigerian workers they had so clamoured for, was thwarted, and the election results were successfully announced.”
Recalling the efforts by the reconciliatory committee headed by Sunmonu to reconcile the aggrieved parties, Wabba said the NLC dissipated considerable energy working with the labour veterans to bring the estranged comrades back to the congress
He said: “Unfortunately, as Nigerians saw during our last national strike against the fuel price increase by the Federal Government, our comrades chose to allow themselves to be used as willing tools to undermine our collective struggle.
“It is quite ironic that these comrades can’t see the contradiction between their empty rhetoric on wanting to ‘fight non-payment of salaries’ and collaboration with the state to undermine popular action of the working people and the Nigerian masses.
“And yet, when the congress was in the frontline forcing their home state government(s) to pay workers their wages and halt retrenchment of thousands of workers, they were nowhere to be seen.
“The congress wish to assure all our members including those of NUEE, NUPENG and others listed as having attended the alleged launch of the new centre, that the NLC will continue to provide protection for them, and will ensure that their leaders do not out of their consuming ambition to be leaders of a ‘national center’ lead them into the wilderness.”