The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday deliberated on the recent strike by aviation workers under the auspices of Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO) and condemned the act in totality.
The FEC presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo resolved that the Federal Government would no longer tolerate a situation where flight activities would be grounded on account of grievances by staff.
It noted that there are channels for aggrieved workers to vent their anger if necessary rather than grounding the sector.
Recall that Nigerians woke up to the news of flight disruptions on Monday, following the strike embarked on by NAHCO.
The Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos was the worst hit as most international flights were disrupted.
The NAHCO officials had hinged the strike on the need for their salaries to be shored up.
The strike, however, coincided with the visit by the President, Muhammadu Buhari to Lagos, where he had gone to commission a number of projects.
Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika disclosed the misgivings of other cabinet members while deliberations went on during FEC.
Sirika stated, “For the travelling public, first we want to apologize to our teeming passengers in this difficult moment. Secondly, this will not happen in the future by the grace of God. The reason is simple, aviation is an essential service, the Act has been assented to by Mr. President, so strikes and riots around our airports are prohibited by the laws of the land.
“Now that we have the Act in place and assented by Mr President and passed by the National Assembly. We will deal with it according to the law. We will ensure no essential service is being disrupted by anybody, no matter how aggrieved.
“There are other channels of channelling issues when they arise, but they are not permitted to go on strike because aviation is an essential service and is by the law of the land now.
“I will give you an example, there was an airline that had to return to base because it couldn’t land. Imagine if there was a patient on that aircraft.
“You can imagine a situation where somebody is attending to a very serious matter at hand or a business meeting or possibly a student trying to catch up with an examination and then owing to somebody’s grievances another person will die or suffer unnecessarily.
“We will no longer allow that. So it’s in the law of the land, check the FAAN Act, it’s been assented to and it’s going to take place soon, in fact now, from today we will not allow that.
“Government our ears are always open, the government is open to listening to any grievances and there are procedures for dealing with this kind of grievances. They should desist from this, it is wrong, it is inhuman, it is not allowed, it is not permitted and we will not be permitted any longer”.
As of the time of filing this report, NAHCO officials have suspended their strike for the time being.
