The ongoing strike in Oyo State took a dangerous dimension on Wednesday, as the officials of the state council of Nigeria Civil Service Union cried out over alleged threat to their lives.
The officials of the NCSU, in a statement issued by Comrades Kehinde Oparinde and Dupe Adewoye, state Chairman and Higher Organising Secretary, alleged that some labour leaders had been after their lives for daring to order their members to suspend the strike and go back to work.
The state chapter of the NCSU had, acting on the directive from its national headquarters, last week bowed out of the ongoing strike embarked upon by workers over the agitation for new minimum wage and directed its members to resume work immediately.
The officials hinged the calling off of the strike on the understanding of government’s position concerning the paucity of funds vis-à-vis the population of workers in the state as well as government’s promise to improve on the current salary table as soon as the finances of the state improved.
The officials wrote on Wednesday: “Our union decided to agree on the current table to forestall the possibility of government retrenching workers.
“The above and more are what the union leadership did not like that led to the hunting of the lives of the principal officers of NCSU.”
The officials, therefore, appealed to security agencies in the state as well as men and women of goodwill “to call these elements to order and not to engage in blood shedding as a tool of wage negotiation.”