Seaports, National Grid Shutdown , As Labour Unions Begin Nationwide Strike

By Roland Ekama

Organised labour has today , Monday June 3 2024 commenced withdrawal of services in a nationwide strike to push for a new national minimum wage for workers.

The industrial action comes after a series of unsuccessful negotiations involving both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and federal government representatives at the tripartite committee meetings on the new minimum wage.

Negotiations, however, broke down on Friday last week after the government earlier in the week offered a marginal increase of N3,000 to the N57,000 offer it had earlier made to come up with a N60,000 minimum wage proposal, a figure deemed unsatisfactory by Labour representatives.

Meanwhile, port operations in Lagos was not spared as the respective unions – namely the Maritime Workers’Union of Nigeria MWUN and the maritime branch of Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies (SSASCGOC) complied to the directive.

Our correspondent gathered that all the Lagos seaports are currently closed as a result of the NLC /TUC nation wide strike.

The entry points of Lagos Ports Complex LPC and Tin Can Island Port respectively, were barricaded with the presence of Police and customs officials.

Personnel of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and Nigeria Customs Service were not even allowed to work in their offices, even as freight forwarders and shippers were urged to reschedule their appointments when the strike might have been called off.

Labour workers and freight forwarders were seen by DAILYFOCUS NIGERIA outside the ports sitting idle .

 

Similarly, at least ten vessels were at berth across the two major seaports in Lagos.

Also, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) on Monday disclosed that the union deliberately shutdown the national grid.

According to a statement from Ndidi Mbah
General Manager Public Affairs , Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) explained that the union deliberately shutdown the national grid.

Mbah stated that the Transmission Company is informing the general public that the Labour Union has shut down the national grid, resulting in black out nationwide.

According to her, the national grid shut down occured at about 2.19am this morning, 3rd June 2024.

“At about 1:15am this morning, the Benin Transmission Operator under the Independent System Operations unit of TCN reported that all operators were driven away from the control room and that staff that resisted were beaten while some were wounded in the course of forcing them out of the control room and without any form of control or supervision, the Benin Area Control Center was brought to zero.

“Other transmission substations that were shut down, by the Labour Union include the Ganmo, Benin, Ayede, Olorunsogo, Akangba and Osogbo Transmission Substations. Some transmission lines were equally opened due to the ongoing activities of the labour union.

“On the power generating side, power generating units from different generating stations were forced to shut down some units of their generating plants, the Jebba Generating Station was forced to shut down one of its generating units while three others in the same substation subsequently shut down on very high frequency. The sudden forced load cuts led to high frequency and system instability, which eventually shut down the national grid at 2:19am.

*At about 3.23am, however, TCN commenced grid recovery, using the Shiroro Substation to attempt to feed the transmission lines supplying bulk electricity to the Katampe Transmission Substation. The situation is such that the Labour Union is still obstructing grid recovery nationwide.

“We will continue to make effort to recover and stabilize the grid to enable the restoration of normal bulk transmission of electricity to distribution load centres nationwide,”she added.