The National Industrial Court, sitting in Abuja, yesterday, ordered the Federal Government and the organised labour to submit report of their negotiations on the disputes over the new minimum wage by January 30, 2019. The court had, at the last adjourned date, granted an order of ex-parte stopping the labour from proceeding on its planned strike. The NLC had suspended the planned strike action, though not because of the court order, but because the tripartite committee agreed and recommended N30,000 as minimum wage.
The reports had since been submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari. However, when the matter came up yesterday, the three defendants – the National Labour Congress, the Trade Union Congress and the Nigerian Governors’ Forum – were absent and were also not represented by any counsel. But the plaintiffs, the Federal Government and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami – were represented by their legal team led by Emmanuel Omonowa. Omonowa, however, informed the court that based on the order made by the court on November 2, negotiations on the new minimum wage were ongoing. He, therefore, prayed the court to give more time to the parties in the suit to enable them to continue with the negotiations and later give a report on the negotiation efforts to the court.
“Pursuant to Order 42(1) of the National Industrial Court Rules, the court should allow parties to see the possibility of amicable settlement of the matter,” Omonowa said. Following Omonowa’s request, the trial judge, Justice Sanusi Kado, restated his November 2 order restraining the labour from embarking on the planned strike and warned all the parties to the suit against taking any step that cause disruptions in the case. He later adjourned till January 30, 2019, for the parties to report to the court on whether or not they had settled amicably or would still be interested in going on with the case. New Telegraph recalls that Justice Kado had, on November 2, in a ruling on an ex parte application moved on behalf of the Federal Government by the Solicitor-General of the Federation and Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Justice, Dayo Apata, stopped the labour from embarking on their planned strike scheduled to commence on November 6.
