Government offices and public schools in Osun State were shut on Monday, 9 November, as workers began a three-day strike over a prolonged dispute concerning statutory allocations to local government councils.
The stoppage followed a directive issued by the Osun State Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in solidarity with members of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE). The union said a seven-day ultimatum to the Federal Government and the Osun State Government had expired without a resolution.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, the gates of the state government secretariat and House of Assembly in Osogbo were locked on Monday, with no staff or official business activity at the premises. The Olorunda and Osogbo local government secretariats were also closed.
Public school teachers joined the industrial action, and pupils in Osogbo were sent home. The disruption extended the consequences of the council funding dispute beyond local government employees to families and residents who depend on public services.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the state NLC chairman, Christopher Arapasopo, and secretary, Victor Amusan, instructed affiliated unions to participate in the sympathy strike. They said the decision followed an emergency meeting of the union’s State Executive Council on 28 October.
The union scheduled the strike to begin at midnight on Sunday, 8 November, and continue until midnight on Wednesday, 11 November. It instructed affiliate unions to communicate the directive to their members and warned of disciplinary action against unions that deliberately undermined it.
The NLC said it had exhausted reasonable efforts to secure a settlement and that the difficulties facing local government workers had become a concern for the wider labour movement. Its demand centres on access to statutory funds allocated to the state’s local councils.
The funding controversy is linked to a continuing political and legal dispute over the administration of Osun’s 30 local government areas. The state government and the All Progressives Congress have been at odds over control of the councils since February 2025.
The dispute followed rival claims to local government offices and the validity of council administrations. It has affected access to funds intended for council operations, while competing political interests have challenged each other’s authority over the institutions.
The wider legal background includes the Supreme Court’s July 2024 judgment on local government financial autonomy, which directed that allocations from the Federation Account should reach local government councils directly. The judgment did not, by itself, resolve the subsequent dispute over who lawfully administers the Osun councils.
The Osun labour movement has argued that the funding impasse has placed council workers under sustained pressure. In an earlier communiqué, it acknowledged the state government’s intervention in paying workers’ net salaries, but said that arrangement could not replace regular access to statutory council allocations.
The union had also warned that, if its demands remained unmet, members could begin peaceful picketing of United Bank for Africa branches in the state from Thursday, 12 November. That action was described as a proposed next step; it had not begun as of Monday’s reports.
Neither the reported closure of government offices nor the union’s directive establishes that the underlying funding dispute has been settled. The immediate confirmed development is the withdrawal of labour across affected public institutions and the interruption of services during the scheduled three-day action.
Photograph: Osun State Government Secretariat, Abeere, archival location image supplied by Hotels.ng. The photograph does not show the November 2026 strike.
