Human and vehicular movements have been disrupted in Ikeja, Lagos State capital, as the Nigeria Labour Congress carried out its threat on Tuesday to embark on solidarity protest across the country with the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Labour members, other unions, civil society groups had gathered at under bridge axis in Ikeja and made vehicular movements difficult.
About 40 NLC affiliates, including aviation, bank, oil and gas, electricity and construction workers are participating in the protest.
There is a massive presence of security operatives in to ensure that hoodlums do not hijack the protest as workers across all sectors of the economy troop out in solidarity with university lecturers who have been on strike over the poor state of the country’s tertiary institutions.
The ASUU had shut all public universities and commenced its ongoing strike on February 14, after the Federal Government failed to meet some of its demands.
The university lecturers union want the government to release the revitalisation funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release earned allowances for university lecturers, and deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution platform for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers.
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, had last Wednesday declared the protest illegal, saying the NLC had no dispute with the government.
The next day, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, also cautioned against the demonstration, saying he received a security report from the Department of State Services that the rally might be hijacked by hoodlums.
