The General Secretary of the NLC, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson, said in a statement in Abuja on Monday that the protest was in line with the directive of the National Executive Council of the NLC, which met on Dec. 17, 2018.
“That is, if by Dec. 31, 2018, the bill on the National Minimum Wage has yet to be sent to the National Assembly to be passed as an act of Parliament.
“We immediately announced then that on Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, there will be a nationwide mass mobilisation and protests simultaneously across all states in Nigeria. This does not translate to a strike.
“It is on record that each time we had cause to embark on a national strike, we say so publicly without any equivocation.
‘‘We still don’t understand where the story about a strike commencing tomorrow came from,” he said.
According to him, all state councils, affiliate unions and the civil society organisations have been fully informed and mobilised to ensure the success of Tuesday’s mass protests in all the states and the Federal Capital Territory.
It will be recalled that the organised labour had issued the threat after President Muhammadu Buhari’s statement that a “high powered technical committee” would be set up to device ways to ensure that the implementation of the new minimum wage did not lead to an increase in the level of borrowing.