The new Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Dr. Kayode Opeifa, 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 known as the Western and Eastern Lines, and three standard gauges namely; the Abuja-Kaduna, (AKTS), Itakpe-Warri (IWTS) and Lagos-Ibadan Train Service (LITS).
The union leaders had sent a signal of what is ahead to the new MD while welcoming him to the headquarters on Thursday, as a result of their poor welfare.
The President General of the Nigerian Union of Railway Workers (NUR), Comrade Innocent Luka Ajiji, said they were just waiting to receive the new MD before embarking on the strike action.
Ajiji, who is also the President, Africa Railway Workers Union (AfRWU), an affiliate of the International Transport Federation (ITF) moments after meeting with the Managing Director addressed the media informing them that the proposed strike is not only suspended but outrightly cancelled.
Ajiji, who was accompanied by the President of the Senior Staff Association of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (SSANRC), Comrade Marcel Okeke, expressed happiness at the appointment of Opeifa, who like them, is a comrade and human rights activist.
‘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 as a result of this appointment, we are not only suspending, but we are outrightly cancelling all machinery set in motion for an industrial action aimed at drawing Federal Government’s action to the plight of railway workers’, Ajiji said.
He said the two unions are cancelling the protest in deference to the new MD and would be happy to commence the process of a new 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 between the unions and the management.
