President of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, says the Labour Party cannot tell the trade union what action to take on any particular issue.
He stated that the formation of the LP from the NLC does not imply that the political party holds any authoritative control over Labour’s actions.
On Monday, NLC and the Trade Union Congress had struck an agreement with the Federal Government to suspend the planned strike scheduled for Wednesday.
Ajaero, who spoke during an interview on Channels TV, confirmed the affiliation between LP and NLC, but dismissed claims that the political party sponsors the union.
According to him, “Well, I wouldn’t know whether these issues are informed issues. It is clear to everybody in Nigeria that Labour Party is owned by the NLC and no leader of NLC can deny that.
“But even when this issue of subsidy was analyzed by various presidential candidates, the NLC was clear and I could remember I stated that if the Labour Party candidate went into that, he would even have double punishments from the Labour Movement because that counters our demands that was given to him and the ideology for which the Labour Party was formed.
“The fact that we formed Labour Party does not mean that if it does anything wrong, and is an insult to say that Labour Party is now dictating for NLC that formed it? That is the worst insult anybody can say.
“If people are going into blackmail, it should not be such. We determine what happens in Labour Party to a large extent. Who is Labour Party and their candidate to tell NLC what to do? What we are doing now, has it not been consistent with what we have been doing on fuel subsidy?”