The Buhari Media Organisation has described the situation at the National Assembly complex as a sneak preview of what the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has in stock for Nigerians if voted into power next year.
It however hailed Parliamentary workers for suspending their four-day warning strike to enable President Muhammadu Buhari present the 2019 budget proposal.
BMO said in a statement signed by the Chairman, Niyi Akinsiju and the Secretary, Cassidy Madueke that it was shocking that the PDP-dominated leadership had to initially resort to using security forces to intimidate the aggrieved workers.
“We commend the patriotic members of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) for sheathing their swords temporarily as a mark of respect for President Buhari especially as he is due to present the 2019 budget proposal on Wednesday (today) to a joint sitting of the federal legislature.
“Before the workers took that decision, the National Assembly leadership had sought to blackmail the security agencies by saying that the Police and the Department of State Services should be held responsible if the President is unable to table the budget.
“Only an irresponsible leadership would seek to resort to blackmail rather than accede fully to the workers’ legitimate grievances of non-payment of allowances, poor remuneration and non-implementation of a new salary structure approved since 2010”.
BMO added that it was surprised that the Chairman of the National Assembly went on a political jamboree to the US with some members of strategy team of the PDP Presidential campaign council at a time he should be spearheading a line of action to douse the tension in the complex.
It said: “More shocking is that the Senate President Bukola Saraki was in the United States holding meetings as the Director General of the party’s campaign council alongside Reno Omokri,a former aide to former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“We understand that the PDP President candidate Atiku Abubakar cannot travel to the US but it is the height of insensitivity for Saraki to abandon ship at a time leadership is required to end the impasse.”
The group however noted that such attitude is synonymous with PDP and their members who have a history of insensitivity to workers’ plight.
“It is not a coincidence that the party’s 16-year rule was doted by incidences of unpaid salaries and pensions as well as ghost workers.
“Unlike what PDP is known for, President Buhari has in the last three and half years showed that he firmly believes that a worker deserves his wage by even approving federal bailouts to states to settle salaries owed to workers.
“This is aside from paying off the pensions of ex-Biafran policemen and that of the former Nigeria Airways staff which had been pending for decades, ” BMO said.