The Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Lekan Balogun, has pleaded with organized labour to shelve the planned strike and explore ways of resolving the vexatious issues amid the insistence to embark on a nationwide strike next week.
The monarch equally enjoined the government not to overstretch the people, saying there must be tangible measures to reassure the people that the renewed hope agenda is truly for real.
Oba Balogun, on his 63rd independence day, congratulated Mr. President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his Vice, Sen. Kashim Shettima, the states’ governors, the NASS members, other political leaders, and the generality of Nigerians. He urged the labour leaders to prevail on their members to bear with the present administration with the mindset that no problem could be solved with another problem.
“I plead for dialogue between the labour and the government, and in dialoguing, there should be openness and understanding, bearing in mind that where two elephants fight, it is the grass there that suffers.
“Let’s be mindful of the effect of total paralysis on our battered economy. Consider the sick; consider the students from our nursery school to the university, among several others that would bear the brunt. The loss is simply incalculable.
“I want our labour leaders to cast their minds back to the last prolonged strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the effect on our students. How do we compensate for the loss of a whole academic session in the lives of the affected students? Such loss is eternal because it is not possible to wind back the hand of the clock. That’s just an example”, Olubadan added.
Olubadan acknowledged the position of the labour movement is-à-vis the plight of workers and the generality of the people, noting that “things are really bad and living in the country is becoming hellish for the people day by day, but we need to apply caution, considering the short time of the present administration so far and in view of what it inherited. Let’s be optimistic that, with time, the situation will become normal.
