The new Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation Dr Kayode Opeifa, has averted a looming workers strike that would have paralyzed train services on the five train networks across the country.
The nation’s oldest corporation owns and runs train services on the two narrow gauges and three standard gauges namely; the Abuja-Kaduna, (AKTS), Itakpe-Warri (IWTS) and Lagos-Ibadan Train Service (LITS).
The union leaders, sending a signal of what is ahead while welcoming the new MD had hinted of a looming strike by the workers who were tired of their poor welfare.
The President General of the Nigerian Union of Railway Workers (NUR) Comrade Jonathan Ajiji said they were just waiting to receive the new MD before embarking on the strike action. What appears as a looming industrial action that would have paralysed the nation’s railway corporation was averted on Thursday as the two workers unions announced a total cancellation of all activities leading to the protest.
The two unions, whose leaders were part of the stakeholders who welcomed the new managing director Dr Kayode Opeifa, to his office, said the proposed protests was not only suspended but cancelled in deference to the antecedent of the new managing director, who like them is a dye-in-the-wool comrade.
“We are happy at the choice of Mr President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who gave us Dr Kayode Opeifa. We know of his antecedent at the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), and we, on behalf of all our members are assuring him that because of his appointment, we are not only suspending, but we outright cancelled the machinery set in motion for an industrial action aimed at drawing Federal Government’s action to the plight of railway workers,” one of the leaders Innocent Ajiji said.
Ajiji, who is the President of the National Union of Railway Workers (NUR) said the unions are happy that they now have a boss who would have the interest of railway workers at heart.
He said the unions agreed to outrightly cancel the protest and start a new process of negotiation with the new MD because they are assured that they may get a new deal with him that would be better than all the old agreement upon which they had hinged their strike action.
“We want to assure the MD that there is now a very perfect peace among the rank and file of railway workers for now, we look forward to starting a new negotiation with the Opeifa led management.
“We look forward to commencing a new negotiation with the new MD and his team because we believe that we can get something more from the new MD based on his antecedents and his pro-workers disposition,” Ajiji said.
Earlier the new MD, Opeifa said, he was the one that insisted that the union leaders be invited, representing the workers as the management receives him formally to the corporation’s headquarters.
He said he would work with the two unions to enhance service delivery even as the management would enhance workers welfare.
