The leadership of a factional group of Local Government workers in Osun State, under the aegis of the Association of Concerned Local Government Workers, has directed striking staff across the state to immediately resume work.
Local government administration in Osun had been paralysed since Monday, February 17, 2025, following violent clashes between members of the Peoples Democratic Party and the opposition All Progressives Congress over the control of the councils.
At the time, the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees, led in Osun by its state president, Dr Kehinde Ogungbangbe, had directed workers to stay away from duty posts. The directive, according to him, was to prevent staff from becoming casualties in the political clashes.
However, on Thursday in Osogbo, the State Coordinator of the factional group, Adedayo Adekunle, accused NULGE’s leadership of insensitivity by keeping workers at home for seven months and urged local government staff to return to their offices immediately.
Adekunle, while addressing journalists, also called on security agencies to protect workers, stressing that local government staff were apolitical.
He said, “To avoid degradation and possible job loss, concerned local government staff hereby call on all patriotic and law-abiding local government workers to resume back to work without delay. Information at our disposal is that staff auditing has been slated for next week to ascertain the actual number of staff in the office.
But in a counter-statement signed by its Publicity Secretary, David Owoeye, Osun NULGE disowned the directive, insisting that neither its state nor national leadership had asked members to resume work.
The statement partly read, “The Union is using this medium to inform our well-respected and esteemed members to know that such information did not emanate from the elected State NULGE Executives under the leadership of Comrade Dr. Nathaniel Kehinde Ogungbangbe, and there is no directive of such from the national body of our Union under the leadership of Comrade Haruna Aliyu Kankara.