The Government of Ekiti state has been given a 48-hour ultimatum by the Ekiti State councils of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Joint Negotiation Council (JNC) to pay the December deductions in their salaries or face an industrial action.

It would be recalled that Labour had last week Tuesday issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the government to pay or risk strike but it was overshadowed by the NLC nationwide strike which commenced the next day being Wednesday.

Odunayo Adesoye, the state TUC boss, made it known to newsmen that Labour leaders were having meeting to know the next course of action after the 48 hours ultimatum issued to the governor to comply with the early demand.

He said: “What we are advocating for is the payment of the deductions, so that cooperative societies will be viable enough to lend money to workers to confront the present hardship.

“We were at the meeting for the sharing of the last state allocation, where we agreed that subventions to the State University, College of Education and College of Science and Technology, Ijero-Ekiti should be paid, while the next allocation will be for the payment of other workers.

“We were in that meeting, we participated, we knew the financial position of the state and it was difficult for us to turn around and fight the government on why salaries are not paid.

“The main reason why we issued ultimatum to government on deduction was that, we agreed at the meeting that all deductions on December salary be paid and on that we stand.”