Governor Nasir El-Rufai has declared Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) leaders who coordinated the shutdown of the state in protest over mass sack of workers as bandits.
Their actions, according to the Governor, were equivalent to the actions of bandits terrorising the state.
He vowed they will be prosecuted, accusing them of unwanton destruction of public properties and disruption of peace.
“KDSG views NLC actions as the mob equivalent of bandits that are kidnapping and menacing our citizens. Bandits illegally use arms, but the NLC’s mob action is for similar ends: to hold hostage freedoms, economic interests, livelihoods and resources of the people of Kaduna State,”he tweeted today.
“Efforts to dress up criminal activity as industrial action do not change the reality of lawbreaking that has unfolded, including their persistently ignoring the prohibition against impeding essential services”.
The NLC-led industrial action has grounded activities in Kaduna since Monday, with health workers, electricity workers, teachers and others downing tools.
The governor also terminated the employment of all nurses below grade level 14 in the state for embarking on strike in solidarity with the Nigeria Labour Congress.
In a statement by his spokesman Muyiwa Adekeye, the governor described the action of the NLC as a “campaign of economic and social sabotage and lawlessness”.
“KDSG (Kaduna State Government) acknowledges doctors and some other categories of health workers that are trying to run public health facilities, but regrets that some nurses have joined the unlawful strike and engaged in sabotage of some of our health facilities. Nurses were implicated in the forceful discharge of patients in many health facilities,” the statement read.
“Reports from Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital disclosed that some identified nurses disconnected the oxygen supply of a two-day old baby in an incubator on Monday, 17th May 2021. The names of the three nurses from the Special Baby Care Unit who were involved in this despicable act have been forwarded to the Ministry of Justice to initiate prosecution for attempted murder or murder in the event we lose the baby.”
The statement added, “The Ministry of Health will dismiss all nurses below GL 14 for going on an unlawful strike. Salaries that could have gone to them are to be given as extraordinary occupational allowances to the health workers who are at their duty posts to fill the gap of those absconding from duty. The Ministry of Health has been directed to advertise vacancies for the immediate recruitment of new nurses to replace those dismissed.”
He also ordered the sack of all nurses in the state below Grade Level 14 and lecturers of the Kaduna State University (KASU) for joining the five-day warning strike.
