Workers of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) on Wednesday in Lagos said the best way to find a resolution to the non-payment of their 30 months arrears of salaries is to cut off all forms of communications come October 1.

Kenndy Ndubuisi, the Lagos co-ordinator of Concerned NITEL workers, one of the groups fighting for the aggrieved workers, said the might be forced to shut down the nation’s international telecommunications gateway, Sat-3.

“It is now 30 months we have not been paid salary,” he said. “We got the information from the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) that they have handed recommendation of the committee on our salary arrears to the presidency. It is more than a month they submitted that recommendation to the presidency ,which noted that workers should be paid their entitlement and be sent off, but yet we have not heard from government.

“The SAT-3 is a NITEL installation; we have seen that the federal government only listens to militancy and violence. That is why we are going to shut down SAT-3 that would make them pay us. As we saw, the workers of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) did that just recently. They shut down their stations for just two days and the government hurried to paid them.” Mr Ndubuisi said the shutdown of SAT-3 would attract government’s attention and force it to pay their arrears immediately.

“We would shut down all forms of communication signals in the country. Some people do not even know that NITEL is working; all form of communications signals pass through NITEL, like internet connection, mobile phones, radio signals, etc,” he said “We have told the government earlier that if nothing is done, we would make sure that this country does not celebrate October 1. So, all form of communication would be shut, the operations of NITEL reside in Lagos. While those in Abuja are trying to talk to government to be reasonable but if that fail the workers in Lagos would shut down SAT-3. The government has never been reasonable because they have being owing us for 30 months arrears and government is paying salaries to the militants around the country.”

Waiting for Information

The spokesperson of NITEL, Sule Shehu however explained that the workers are waiting to hear from the Minister of Labour, in Abuja in order to resolve the settlement of their arrears.

“Some workers are in a meeting with Minister of Labour, Chukwuemeka Wogu. They started the meeting around 4pm while the rest of us are waiting outside the office to hear the outcome of the meeting,” he said.

“Last week, a group of NITEL workers came and invaded the BPE in Abuja and they spoke with the BPE and threatened that if by this week the government does not make a categorical statement about our condition, they are going to disrupt the Independence anniversary.

“The workers have sacked their union leaders, so the minister is meeting with the Concern NITEL Staff Union.” In 2008, leading to the mismanagement of NITEL, the federal government revoked the sale of NITEL to Transcorp and set up the national carrier for privatization process. Government has said to settle all outstanding arrears of the workers from the proceeds of the sale of NITEL.

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“The SAT-3 is a NITEL installation; we have seen that the federal government only listens to militancy and violence. That is why we are going to shut down SAT-3 that would make them pay us. As we saw, the workers of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) did that just recently. They shut down their stations for just two days and the government hurried to paid them.” Mr Ndubuisi said the shutdown of SAT-3 would attract government’s attention and force it to pay their arrears immediately.

Nigeria: One week - one trouble.