After the announcement by the Ekiti state government, that it was cutting down on salaries of workers in the state, even of political appointees too, not much reaction was expected immediately except for the usual backlash on social media by concerned citizens.
So, it was surprising for El Rufai, the governor of Kaduna state to call out the Nigerian Labour Congress on twitter. In his double edged tweet, he asked if the NLC was on twitter while retweeting the announcement made by the government of Ekiti on the same twitter platform. He said this probably because there had not yet been an official statement by the congress in response to Ekiti state’s salary cut.
Recall that few weeks ago the NLC brought activities in Kaduna state to a halt following a standoff with the government in the person of El Rufai. It embarked on a total strike that had far reaching consequences for the state’s economy, citizens and country at large. During this period, both parties had continuous heated exchange of words on twitter where NLC announced the mother of all strikes and El Rufai referred to them as the father of all hypocrites.
It took the intervention of the federal government, the federal ministry of labour and some governors for a resolution to be agreed upon by both conflicting parties before the strike of about 4 days was called off.
In view of this, it is clear then that there is no love lost between El Rufai and the NLC after their bitter show of strength. Or was El Rufai trying to show he’s being softer with workers in the state when compared with the Ekiti government. Was it justification or a taunt?
For now, though, we cannot say where the tweet by El Rufai would have led to, following the suspension of Twitter from Nigeria few hours after El Rufai’s tweet, we couldn’t see the consummation of the rough romance between the governor and the labour congress.
