…Says: ‘It never called us to negotiate’
The Nigerian Labour Congress, (NLC) president, Joe Ajaero has said President Bola Tinubu’s committee on petrol subsidy meeting with the organised labour appears to lack capacity to negotiate and expedite actions on resolving the impasse as per the Federal Government’s promised palliative measures to improve Nigerians’ well-being in the short-term.
Ajaero stated this at a meeting between the leadership of the organised labour and the Senate leadership led by Godswill Akpabio.
The labour leader also cast aspersions on the social register for poor and vulnerable citizens created by the defunct administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The NLC chief said the wage review committee had not sat two months after the removal of the subsidy, lamenting the plight of Nigerians as a result of subsidy removal without provisions to ameliorate the adverse effects on the masses.
Ajaero also lamented that while labour leaders were still deliberating on N537 per litre of fuel and court had ruled for status quo to remain, the federal government decided to increase petrol price to N620 per litre.
On the $800 million loan being sought for by the government, the NLC president urged Tinubu not to use the same template of disbursement by the Buhari-Osinbajo administration.
The Senate president commended the NLC, TUC and other unions for their patience. He told them that although Tinubu had saved N1 trillion by removing the subsidy regime, the president inherited a debt of over N30 trillion.
