 You're welcome back. Okay, TUC and NLC have vowed to begin strike on Tuesday, 14th of November, or let's say they are threatened to begin strike on Tuesday, 14th of November as a fallout to the assault on Joe Agiaro, the president of NLC. Remember that in Emo State, when the workers went to protest, the NLC president was said to be assaulted, arrested or abducted, depends on where you stand, and then assaulted, and then we saw him with the swollen face and so many other things. Now the NLC has vowed that they are going to go on strike on Tuesday. That gives room for the election to hold on the 11th, which is Saturday, and then the strike begins on the 14th, which is a few days away. We are glad to be joined this morning to talk about this by Mr. Nick Agulay, Public Affairs Analyst. Good morning and welcome to the program, Nick. Good morning, Nyangu, and good morning to our viewers globally. Okay, NLC, TUC, Labor in general, we are here again like we always are. They are threatening strike, and this time, like I said in my opening, it's more like a fallout from what happened to the president of NLC. I mean, you can understand that if it happens to the president of NLC, it can also happen to the president of TUC and any other Nigerian. These are very powerful people, and if this kind of a thing can happen, it could happen to anyone. But now they're threatening strike at this critical moment of our economy or our political history and so on. Would like to get your comment, first of all, on what you think about this threat of strike and what happens to the president of NLC. Thank you very much for that question. I have two perspectives to this question. On the one hand, the physical manhandling, and I mean, we have seen the pictures, like you displayed on the screen, of the NLC national president. It's condemnable. It is wrong. It is something that should not happen in a decent society like us. And this is something that needs to be taken up by the security agents in Nigeria, investigated, and the corporates brought to book, put through the judicial system, and pronouncements made and sentences implemented. That is the way issue happened in a society that wants to develop. So that is one perspective. The other perspective is I don't think the NLC, and I don't support them to threaten, not just to threaten to go on strike, but to set a date to go on strike as a first measure. Strike actions should be used as weapons of last resort in negotiations, meaning every other effort has failed. And the only remedy left at the disposal of the labor unions is a strike action to press or to push forward their demands. One thing the NLC has reached that point in this particular incident yet. NLC must recognize that a strike action is injurious to the economy of Nigeria. And the injury is suffered more by NLC members. So a strike should not be something that should be dropped on the table every now and then. Other avenues to address this injustice that was perpetrated on their precedent must first be explored to their finality. So I expected the NLC to issue an ultimatum to the inspector general of police to arrest those who molested their precedent, put them through investigation, and then through trial, and then through sentencing, and then through implementation of sentence. And it is only if the inspector general of police was not ready or willing or dragging the matter that the NLC can come to putting strike action on the table. And until that is done, I think if the NLC are putting strike on the table at every turn, even the import of strike may wear out and strike will no longer become anything that either the government or anybody fears. So these are my two perspectives on this matter. Yeah, but you know, the people who assaulted the NLC president policemen, according to what we've heard, they're not just dogs. He was arrested or abducted according to the NLC. But according to the police, he was taken into protective custody because they were afraid that the dogs might hurt him. And the question we were asking and the NLC also was asking was that how do you take someone into protective custody from his house? Because they were at the secretariat of the NLC when the policemen came and took him to where nobody knew and then assaulted him and then let him go after a while and all that. So I don't know if you're calling for the IGP to prosecute the whoever is in charge of the police in emo state, the commissioner of police in emo state or you're calling for a particular police station to be prosecuted. Who should bear the brunt of this kind of a condemnable act like you call it? So let me take the minds of our viewers back a few years. There was this incident that attained global acclaim in the US. The mother of George Floyd, the black man that was killed by the police. There was a maxim that emanated from that incident calling the police on the police. Okay. The citizens called the police on the police. What does that mean? There were policemen who were in uniform who were committing a murder and citizens took their phones and when they died 9-1-1 they were calling the police to come and arrest policemen. That's what they meant by calling the police on the police and the inspector general of Nigeria has to do the same. He must put the police on the police that you are a policeman. You are wearing a uniform does not make you to be above the law. You must be subjected to the laws of the land. You know, this is it. Let's be honest with ourselves. In every Nigerians mind the one Nigeria to be a beautiful place like the UK where I'm sitting now. But Nigeria cannot become a beautiful place like the UK by magic. It doesn't happen by magic. There are certain ingredients that must be put in that pot of soup before it will be sweet like the UK soup. And this is one of them. Law. Law. Regardless of who you are. Until we attain that or even the semblance of that in Nigeria. We're not yet ready for development. That's just the truth. Because like here in the UK where I'm sitting there is a body and this is the kind of things Nigeria should be copying. There is a body that is called independent police conduct authority. I think there's a name for them. Commission. I can give you the official name but that's the kind of body I'm talking about. This body is the one that investigates everything about the police. So if a police car is racing now to a crime scene and he hits a pedestrian that is the body that is going to investigate the police. To be sure that the police did not break the law in hitting that person. If someone is shot by the police, if the police hit somebody, if the police investigate someone wrongly, any conduct by the police that has a semblance of breaking the law that body is the one that does the investigation. If Nigeria were a serious country and we were going to be ready for development. Those are the kind of things we should copy. I don't know whether in Nigeria that is the police service commission. I don't know if that is what it is but that's why we need to see that the police are alleged to have molested somebody. Even if it was not the NSC Chama. Even if it was an ordinary Lifralla Nikagule. Then the police service commission if that is their duty. I don't know for them or a body that independently investigates the police with the police knowing their work. We have this oversight function on our heads. They are going to conduct themselves within the remit of the law. If we don't do this kind of basic things, if we don't put this kind of ingredients in our soup, our children, our young people, we continue to reject the soup we are cooking in Nigeria and jackpot to go and eat soup in other places. So the inspector general police has to do his duty. He must arrest all the policemen that were involved. Let them come forward under investigation and their story that we took the NSC Chama away from Torf into safe custody has to be proven because I believe the NSC Chama was not alone when they picked him up. So there are other people who also there are witnesses. Witnesses and when they picked the NSC Chama, they didn't just take him to the police station alone. I believe that his people who were with him would have also accompanied him to the police station and these are instances where citizen journalism is also very important. The people who were with him or bystander or citizens who were there when these things was happening, they should have brought their cameras and videoed the scene. Is that not what convicted the policemen in the George Floyd case? It was video evidence by citizens. If I want to refresh the minds of our viewers, after the police killed George Floyd, the police in the US they issued a statement and said that George Floyd died in custody when he had there was something they said I can't remember exactly the statement that the police issued though. It was when the citizens started throwing their citizen journalism evidence on the internet that we saw that knee on the neck for half so ever long it was until George Floyd was picked dead on the ground. So Nigerians, please, this is something else we have to be doing. We can't be accepting this thing. I keep saying this thing. Everywhere you go, like here in this UK where I'm sitting, the citizens are the ones that don't accept nonsense from anybody. Because as long as we're accepting all the things thrown at us and saying God, God, we are going to church to pray. It's not going to be good for also. It's not going to be good. Well, 14th of November is just around the corner and all that, but you said that the strike should have been a last resort and all. But the NLC TUC claim that these issues started when according to if I quote Osifo, the TUC chairman or president, he said that the issues started when the present governor just came into power in 2020. And these issues were not even or the president of NLC right now was not even the president then someone else was sitting there on that seat because the governor instead of dialoguing with these people has been saying time without number that the NLC and TUC, especially the president of NLC went there for political purposes. And now the picture he's painting is that NLC is a labor party organization. So they went there as opposition to oppose whatever he's doing. But you think this kind of a person is someone that can reason with the people who are asking or demanding for a particular thing. Because from 2020, if the problems that they're talking about started in 2020, that means this is about three years that problems have been happening. Don't you think that the dialogue because we've never heard this kind of strike or anything? Don't you think that they have exhausted all avenues before they got to the protest and then the strike that is being threatened now? And listen to the TUC president in an interview on another network. And exactly what you are saying is what he was saying. But let's not forget that there are a couple of issues as you have raised. The first is that this matter started in 2020 at the advent of the governor who was a demon's administration. And we are now into the election season in emo state. And if the NLC are planning any form of protest or strike action in emo state, three years later, coinciding with the electoral season in emo state, a lot of people can read political meanings into that. That's a fact. Also that the NLC is a sponsor of the labor party. And the labor party has got a candidate in that election. Again, political undertones can be read into any protest or strike action by the same NLC in an election season in emo state. So that again is a fact. However, if the NLC decides that they want to choose a time that will be most impactful on Governor Hope Udo Dima in terms of pushing their demands, and that time is when he is facing elections or re-election, then they have their right to do that. Because if Governor Hope Udo Dima did not want to visit this problem on himself, he should have solved the problem of the workers since 2020 when the agitation started. And that the NLC is now using this political season to drive home their point. Shouldn't make Governor Hope Udo Dima to take the option of being alleged to be sponsoring violence against the labor leaders. Instead, he should take the honorable way of sorting out the issues of the workers. You see, the problem we have in Nigeria is that workers in Nigeria are treated with levity. You have workers who have put in 30 days of work and at the end of the month, their wages are not paid. Whereas the same government that is not paying their wages is sorting out other costs for themselves. Their convoys are never reduced. Their treats are never reduced. All other expenditure is going on. It's only the worker salaries that is not being paid. So Governor Hope Udo Dima should have taken the path of honor of giving to the workers their demands and their demands after a just and due wage. So why would he not take that path but instead begin to be alleged to be the person who is calling for violence? And I listened to Governor Udo Dima myself in the State House in Abuja. And his statement was that the NSC chairman came and was getting himself involved in local emo politics because the NSC chairman himself is an indigent of emo state. That statement by the governor was very suggesting that either he was saying what happened to the NSC chairman he deserved it or perhaps that he is the one that wanted to teach him a lesson that he should not get himself mixed up between liberal matters and political matters in the state. And these are the kind of things that happen in Nigeria. Nobody is talking about it. Nobody takes any action. And we suddenly just miraculously want Nigeria to be developing. It's not going to happen, unfortunately. Well, so I was just expressing concern because you offered a solution to this that whenever things go wrong, NLC or any other body at all should seek redress in other ways or through other avenues and use strike as the last resort. So I wanted to point this out and see if you assess Governor Hopu Zodzima, someone who can listen to reason. One of the excuses he gave is that whoever is being owed is a federal worker, not a state worker. So the state is not owing anybody. It is the federal workers. And I keep asking because I don't know how true that is. How is it that in every other state, the federal government is not owing their workers? It is only in emo state what is going on. Is this a statement to be believed? Do you think even it's that there's a remote possibility that that could happen, that he has paid all his people, but it is the federal workers alone in emo state that are being owed? That's one of his arguments. Very unlikely scenario. Totally very unlikely. The federal government pays her workers through a single system that is called RPPIS. All federal government workers are on that system, regardless of where you're working. Your physical location does not matter. And when they run payroll, they run payroll to pay everybody on the RPPIS. There is no way they can pick and choose and say, okay, we're paying federal government workers in the FCT and the other 35 states. Only federal government workers in emo state will not be paid. That is absolutely very unlikely, totally unlikely. It's a scenario that only plays out in the figment of imagination of Governor Ho Puzo Dima, if indeed that's what he said. So I don't believe that. I believe that this matter is pretty much local to emo state because if this matter was a federal government matter, federal government owing workers, it would be a national strike. A national strike by all federal government employees, for instance, that the NSC would be pursuing. They would not be pursuing a local strike in emo state only. So I don't believe that. And I mean, Governor Ho Puzo Dima has to put his heart on his chest and ask himself what is happening in emo state. Because before he came into office, the former speaker, Deputy Speaker of the House of Rep, what is his name? I forgot his name. Eheh Dioha. The man with the green car. Eheh Dioha. Eheh Dioha was Governor of emo state. And there were no crisis in emo state. There were no crisis as to what we had in the public space in emo state. And immediately, Governor Ho Puzo Dima arrived the scene. emo state has been in turmoil for so long. And he has to put his hand on his chest and ask himself why so, you know. And if there are certain things that he has to do to bring peace to emo state, let him bring it. You see, the problem with having a g-rise, people come forward and they say they want to serve the people. How do you want to serve someone? And you are serving him with violence. You are forcing yourself to serve him. If a person says I don't want you to serve me, then don't serve him. If somebody says, you know, your service is not good to me, then you need to understand why the man is complaining instead of violence. I'm not accusing Governor Ho Puzo Dima of perpetrating violence in emo state, but he's the Chief Executive Officer of emo state. And he has to understand why. I mean, he has to figure out. He has to do some soul searching and say, why is it that, under my tenure, emo citizens that are so on the constitution to protect and defend have suffered for this long. You know, this thing we call leadership. Leadership is about people. It shouldn't be about those who are the leaders. If you come forward, I want to serve the people. Please give them development, give them progress. Let the people feel your impact. You should be remembered for what you did to your people. Up to now, the founders of American democracy are being remembered. Up to now, Nancy Mandela is being remembered. We have all these heroes of our time who came, saved their people. And when their time passed, people are still talking about them. So what will history remember Governor Ho Puzo Dima for in emo state? He needs to understand that. He needs to, I didn't know the date. Look, we're just in this world for a while. Just for a while. All of us, every single one of us, have our death, death of death on our heads, which only God can look. So one day, Governor Ho Puzo Dima, he's going to depart this world. When he departs, what will he be remembered for? I think he should do the association. It's a very, very good way to end. Not just all Governor Ho Puzo Dima, everybody on earth should be thinking about leaving a legacy. But like I usually say, always I say this, the most dangerous person is the man who thinks not of legacy. Because he doesn't care if I die, don't die, go, nothing, they happen. There are people like that. Because if you think about what people will remember you for, as you just said, then you will be doing things that when they remember you, it will put smiles on the faces of people. But maybe there are people who will remember him and put smiles on their faces or remember our politicians generally and put smiles on their faces. But I'd like to thank you, Mr. Nika Gulle, for coming on the show this morning and sharing your thoughts with us. Thank you very much. And a nice day to all our viewers. Thank you so much. Okay, we've been talking with Mr. Nika Gulle, a public affairs analyst. He talks to us from London and from the UK. And this is where we wrap it up on the show this morning. It was a pleasure, as usual, to know that you were there and watching the breakfast. Let's do it again tomorrow on behalf of the entire team of the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. My name is Nyaam Gulle at Gadji. Thanks for being there.