Civil servants in Ekiti state on Thursday boycotted offices in compliance with the directive of the NLC and TUC to embark on a seven-day warning strike.
Both the secretariat and offices of Governor Ayodele Fayose and his deputy, Prof Kolapo Olusola were locked on Thursday when our correspondent visited.
Virtually all public offices in the state, including local government secretariats remained shut.
Though commercial activities went undisturbed in Ado Ekiti, the state capital, in the early hours of the day, it wasn’t the same with government offices as both local government, state and federal agencies were deserted.
Some federal media agencies in the state also operated on skeletal services.
Our correspondent observed that top management staff of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) came to work but no junior and middle-level management staff reported for duty.
However, those in the private sector, including private schools, filling stations, markets and banks opened for business for the greater part of the day.
Some of the banks later shut their doors to customers at about 1pm after allegedly receiving threats from labour leaders who threatened to picket them.
The leadership of the organized labour in the state through the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) state chairman, Mr. Ade Adesanmi and his Trade Union Congress (TUC) counterpart, Odunayo Adesoye had earlier directed all the workers in the state to join the nationwide strike.
The strike was to press the Federal and State Governments to accede to their requests for a new Minimum Wage for workers across the country.
The labour leaders told our correspondent that the strike action was going to affect both the public and private sectors ultimately.
According to the leaders, the directive earlier given that workers, including commercial drivers, Okada operators, banks, market men and women should stay off businesses still subsists, saying with time, all categories of workers would embrace the action.
The TUC boss, who spoke on behalf of the labour leaders, expressed satisfaction with the level of compliance on the first day of the nationwide strike.
He assured that the strike would be total in Ekiti, adding that the body had already entered into agreement with the civil society organisations to ensure its success.
He said the leadership of the labour centres in Ekiti had also agreed to unite and ensure the success of the nationwide strike.
Justifying the strike action, Adesoye insisted that the present minimum wage to workers had impoverished the workforce, adding that time had come for workers to begin to savour the fruits of their labour through a package that could truly take them home.
He vowed to make the action more effective in places where the strike appeared ineffective on its first day.
He said, “We expect that the banks, commercial drivers, Okada operators and sole business owners will participate in this strike. We have reached out to the Civil Society Organisations to ensure will mobilize for the strike.
“We are not going to shy away from picketing areas that fail to conform with our directive as given from Abuja.
“This is a fight that has to do with our collective destiny. We must ensure that our commonwealth should be evenly distributed. It shouldn’t be concentrated in the hands of a few Nigerian leaders to begin to feed fat on the nation
“What they said they are giving us is a take home, but what we are getting cannot take us half home in the real sense of it, so we must demand for a fair share of our national treasure.”
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