The Nigeria Labour Congress has vowed to proceed with the proposed nationwide broadcast scheduled to commence on Wednesday despite the national broadcast by President Bola Tinubu on Monday.
Tinubu on Monday addressed the nation and promised to attack the hardship faced by Nigerians as a result of the fuel subsidy removal but the organised labour insisted the President was ‘neither here nor there’ in his address.
The labour said after spending two months in office the President was yet to initiate concrete measures to ameliorate the pains of Nigerians caused by his policies and the broadcast didn’t do enough to address the issues.
But addressing reporters after the resumed meeting of the Presidential Steering Committee on Palliatives, held at the State House, Abuja, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, said the plan for workers to proceed on a peaceful protest from tomorrow had not changed.
Ajaero, who dismissed fears that the peaceful protest could be hijacked by hoodlums, said that had never happened in the history of workers’ protest.
He, however, said it was the responsibility of security agencies to provide security for the protest to protect the workers.
He expressed doubts about President Tinubu’s ability to control inflation and gasoline prices due to the unification of the exchange rate.
He said the meeting was adjourned to 12noon today to enable the labour leaders to listen to the president’s national broadcast on Monday.
Reacting to Tinubu’s plan to intervene on exchange rate over inflation and high cost of gasoline prices, Ajaero said: “By the time you have a single market and you are not having anything that has a comparative advantage, your energy is import driven, then how are you going to control it? How are you going to control somebody that exchanged dollars at about 900 (naira)? Are you going to tell him to sell below the price?
“How are you going to tell even NEPA (DisCos) today, with the cost of production not to increase tariff? Even corn in the villages that was sold at N18, 000 by February, now it’s about 56,000. How are you going to control it?”
The Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, said the government was dealing with the oil cabals that had brought the economy to its knees.
Asked whether the oil cabals were more powerful than the security and government, he said, “Yes they are and that’s what the government is dealing with. First of all, remove the subsidy, that’s the first step.”
The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, pleaded with the organised labour to give the administration little chance to fix the economy. He said President Tinubu inherited a bad economy that he is working hard to fix.
Also speaking, the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, pleaded with the organised labour to give the administration little chance to fix the battered economy.
He said that President Tinubu inherited a bad economy that he is working hard to fix.
“The meeting was an opportunity for us to appeal to the labour leaders by extension Nigerians that we are facing difficulties and challenges that are not our making. We inherited a very bad situation. Most of the problems people are talking about are not a creation of this government. This government is barely two months old and since we have been facing these difficulties and challenges, we have a listening and engaging President, a president who will want to have a conversation and react.
“He is truly, genuinely, honestly doing it. Our appeal is please Nigerians give us the support that is needed and required, we are working, we are trying to change things. We inherited a very bad situation, we are trying to stop all those things we witnessed in the past, we are trying to stop the killings, stop the attacks on trains, stop attacks on prisons, stop IPOB what they are doing, stop bandits, stop Boko Haran,” he said.
