Strike: Osun APC cautions NULGE to review its stance
yarkarkara
The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has urged the state branch of the National Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, to review its stance on its ongoing strike.
The party also warned that grassroots communities continue to bear the brunt of the impasse.
The APC issued the advice in a press statement signed by its Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, on Sunday.
The NULGE chapter in the state, concerned about the safety of its members, had advised local government staff to avoid resuming work at the local government secretariats following the spate of violence that erupted between the supporters of the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
DAILY POST recalled that violence erupted as a result of disagreement between the state APC, PDP, and state government following a February Akure Appeal Court judgment.
As a result of the violence, Remi Abass, an APC chieftain in Ikire, Irewole Local Government Area of the state, was killed.
Meanwhile, the party noted that the suit filed by reinstated APC local government council chairmen at the Federal High Court in Osogbo on Friday, September 12, seeking an extension of their tenure, has added a new dimension to the crisis.
“It is apposite to state unequivocally that with the filing of the suit on tenure by the duly reinstated APC local government council chairmen, if the absconding state NULGE does not change its tactics, there is every tendency that the end of the needless strike is not in sight,” the statement read.
The APC criticised the union’s actions, alleging that NULGE has operated as an extension of the PDP in the state rather than as an independent labour body.
The party claimed that while ordinary members of the union suffer, the leadership continued to enjoy favour from the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke.
“The worst part of the stinking anomalous development in the Osun State ALGON is that while its unsuspecting and hapless members have been suffering from wants and needs, the Governor Ademola Adeleke-led government has been romancing the state executive of the union which culminated into their smiling to the banks at every point in time,” the APC alleged.
The statement also warned that NULGE’s expectation of the APC council chairmen’s tenure expiring in October was misplaced, as the matter is now before the Court of Appeal.
“If what the NULGE has been awaiting is the purported expiry of the tenure of the APC reinstated local government council chairmen in October this year, it is making a great mistake,” Olabisi said.
The party questioned Governor Adeleke’s decision to organise another local government election while the APC chairmen’s tenure was still subsisting.
“The question that Governor Adeleke and his ilk should now answer in the court of law is why did he direct the holding of another purported local government council election during the subsistence of tenures of the executive local government council bosses,” the APC queried.
The statement described the NULGE leadership under Dr Nathaniel Ogungbangbe as lacking finesse, tact, and diplomacy and accused it of being more aligned with the PDP government than with its members.
The APC also alleged that senior officials of the union attended a seminar in Lagos State despite the strike, leaving their members in poverty.
“It is necessary to state here that the Ogungbangbe-led questionable NULGE executive has been engaging in missteps, policy somersaults, frivolous approaches to issues simply because it was foisted on the members by the Ede country home during the needless sympathy strike,” the statement continued.
The party called on NULGE to reconsider its position, insisting that the strike had become unsustainable and damaging to the welfare of ordinary members and the grassroots population.
