On the night of Friday January 13th the national strike was suspended for two days.

The goverment and labour leaders went into closed session talks- two days of dialogue and a white knuckled wait followed.

That Sunday, the government agreed to a reduction of the pump price to a compromise figure of N97 and the labour unions, the NLC and TUC, called off the strike.

Disappointment, outrage and recriminations followed and many non union protesters felt betrayed. 

The next morning on January 16th, the military was deployed to major cities to quell any further rallies. At 7.30am political activist Wale Okunniyi visited Funmi at home and led chopcassava back to Labour House where a small number of diehards led by comrade Abiodun Aremu were determined to march through the fortified streets to now iconic Freedom park.