Throwing Nigeria into blackout only option left for us – Ajaero

The General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Mr. Joe Ajaero, has said that members of his union exhausted all avenues of mutual negotiation and agreement before deciding on throwing the entire nation into darkness on Wednesday.

Ajaero, who spoke Thursday morning on a live television programme, said embarking on strike from Wednesday, which resulted in the plunging of Nigeria into total darkness was the only option left for the electricity workers, to bring the Federal Government attend to their demands and grievances.

“That’s the only option left for me and my organisation. We have tried other options and they did not work,” he said.

Ajaero said the NUEE had written several letters to the Ministry of Power on the need to resolve outstanding issues of workers welfare, including promotions to the next level, fallout of the nation’s privatisation of the power sector, but there was no response from the ministry, which, according to him, claimed that it does not respond to letters from unions.

The General Secretary, however, confirmed that the strike has been suspended for two weeks, following a four-hour conciliation meeting between the Federal Government and the striking electricity workers in Abuja, with the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr Chris Ngige, representing the government, which asked for the period to address the issue.

“The two weeks is a show of goodwill from my side and organisation,” Ajaero said, adding that it was accepted by the union in order not to be accused of blackmail or being insensitive to the plight of Nigerians and the nation’s economy.

The electricity workers under the joint auspices of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies (SSAEC) were in attendance at the meeting.

READ: Eko DisCo alerts customers as workers shut down transmission company

Ngige said that after exhaustive deliberations on the issues in dispute, they agreed to constitute a bipartite committee to look into the grievances of the electricity workers and report back in two weeks.

According to Ngige, the members of the bipartite committee include the Minister of State for Power, Giddy Jeddy-Agba (Chairman); Permanent Secretary, Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF); Permanent Secretary, General Services, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation; Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment; representative of Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and two representatives from NUEE and SSAEC.

The Minister said the committee has two weeks to report back to the whole house.

He said the meeting afforded the parties the opportunity to thrash out all the issues in dispute, adding that his ministry has apprehended the dispute.

Earlier, several videos emanating from the workers’ action showed the officials gleefully shutting down several transmission stations nationwide.

The workers said they were protesting a directive by the board of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) mandating principal managers in acting capacity to appear for a promotion interview.

Ajaero insisted that the directive was in contravention of the workers’ conditions of service and career progression paths, adding that “it was unilaterally done without the relevant stakeholders”.

The union also complained about the failure of the authorities to pay the entitlement of former staff of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) since December 2019.

The shutdown of the power assets triggered a national electricity grid crash, crumbling from over 4,000MW to 762MW and finally to zero generation at about 4pm.