Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has lampooned the court order withholding Rivers State’s federal allocations, saying the body will resist any order that will negatively affect payment of workers’ salaries.
Ajaero spoke a meeting with NLC members in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Friday.
An Abuja high court had restrained the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN ) from further releasing allocations to the Rivers state government.
The court ruled that federation allocations should not be released to the Sim Fubara-led Rivers State until its lawful appropriation act is passed by a validly constituted house of assembly.
Joyce Abdulmalik, the presiding judge, had held that Fubara should not have presented the state’s 2024 Appropriation Bill to a five-member assembly, ruling that the house of assembly was not properly constituted.
But on Friday, Ajaero said Rivers State workers must receive their salaries comfortably, stressing that the organised labour will oppose any delay.
“Rivers is among the states where workers collect their salaries as and when due. Anything that will make their salaries delayed for a day — we will all jointly fight it,” he said.
“We have heard the cry of our state council on this issue. And as a responsible organisation, we will stand with them.”
Fubara had presented an N800 billion budget to the Edison Ehie faction of the house of assembly in December 2023.
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