Nigerian unions have called for a two-day strike on May 28 and 29 to protest against widespread vote-rigging in last month’s elections, the secretary general of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) said on Thursday.
John Kolawale said the strike, which will coincide with the inauguration of president-elect Umaru Yar’Adua on May 29, would not affect oil production. Nigeria is the world’s eighth-biggest exporter of crude.
”Everybody is expected to stay at home because the action involves not only the unions but also many civil society organisations,” Kolawale said.
He was speaking just after a meeting of leaders from the TUC and another umbrella labour organisation, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). Kolawale said representatives from more than 30 civil society groups also took part.
The NLC said on the weekend it wanted to organise a strike over April’s elections, which it called ”fundamentally flawed and therefore unacceptable”.
May 29 is a public holiday in Nigeria known as ”Democracy Day”. Kolawale said the point of striking on that day was more to demonstrate popular discontent over electoral fraud than to disrupt any economic activity.
”Nigerians will not be involved in witnessing the event,” he said, referring to Yar’Adua’s inauguration, which will take place in the capital Abuja that day.
The polls were supposed to deliver the first democratic transition from one civilian president to another in Africa’s most populous country, but international observers said fraud was so widespread that the results were ”not credible”.
Official results gave the ruling People’s Democratic Party a landslide victory although dozens of candidates for legislators’ and state governors’ posts are contesting the results in court.
The NLC had already called for mass protests on May 1 and thousands of demonstrators gathered in the main cities, but the rallies were tightly controlled by security forces who arrested and tear-gassed scores of activists. Since then, popular protests have been muted. — Reuters