ULC, Ajaero slam Ngige for denying union registration

Ukpono Ukpong, Abuja

President of the United Labour Congress (ULC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, has come hard on the former Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, for denying the congress the certificate of registration.

Comrade Ajaero during a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said the former minister’s action was a complete breach of Section 40 of the constitution which says that everybody has a right to belong to a political party of his choice, religion and of course any union of his choice.

Recall that during his valedictory session, Ngige had said that he could not register the union due to its failure to meet the minimum requirement of getting 12 new unions that have never been registered or affiliated to any existing labour centre.

Ajaero faulted the ex-minister, saying: “The law is very clear that 12 unions can form a centre, but the minister refused to recognise existing unions and instead he is talking about forming 12 new unions.

“That is a complete breach of Section 40 of the constitution which says that everybody has a right to belong to a political party of his choice, a religion of his choice and a union of his choice.

“I have never seen where it is said that for belonging to PDP, you cannot belong to APC. Even in secret societies, you can leave and join another organisation.

It is only in the labour movement that somebody is telling you that the moment you join centre A, you cannot leave until you die.

“Whenever the Trade Union Act is in conflict with the constitution, the constitution takes precedence. So, you cannot quote the Trade Union Act when the constitution has spoken.

“We have been playing this down and that is why I spoke about freedom. The trade union act is under the constitution,” Ajaero said.

While maintaining that it has the right to operate as a centre pending its registration, Ajaero explained that it took Trade Union Congress (TUC) about 27 years to be registered yet the government were still inviting them to meetings.

Explaining why the Congress has not gone to court on the rejection even after meeting the requirement according to him, Comrade Ajaero said, the only letter received from the ministry since the commencement of the application process was the acknowledgement copy of the application form.

“Before you head to court, you must have evidence that you have been rejected.

I have it on good authority that it took Trade Union Congress (TUC) about 27 years to be registered and the law was still clear that the moment you fulfill these things, you exist.

“Even before they were registered, the government was inviting them to meetings until they were registered even though they were having little disagreement with the NLC. They were recognised just like ULC is recognised now, but not yet registered and that was why he invited us to the valedictory speech.

“The process of doing these things are within them and if they do us a letter saying we will not be registered because you existed somewhere before and you must remain there, then we will be talking about taking legal steps,” he said.

He further said that there must be freedom of association, saying that what they see now is victimisation of unionists for belonging to unions of their choice, adding that “our mission here is to tell the whole world that Nigeria and Nigerian unions are paying lip service to freedom of association. We have a situation where unions discourage the formation of new unions.

“Most unions in Nigeria do not want other unions to exist and this is against the freedom of association in Nigeria.

We have seen a lot of hypocrisy in Nigeria. I think the international community should know the situation in Nigeria so that if there is need for them to assist us, they will do so.

We came here to highlight that the hypocrisy in Nigerian unions must cease,” he said.