The organised labour has expressed doubt on the sincerity of the interventions that President Bola Tinubu rolled out during his national broadcast to Nigerians on Monday to cushion the effects of his administration’s policies on the citizens.
According to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) it will continue with its planned protest over the removal of petroleum subsidy, saying what Tinubu told Nigerians was neither here nor there.
They noted that considering the fact that Tinubu had spent two months in office, there was no concrete measure to bring immediate succour to the people.
While addressing newsmen after the resumed meeting of the Presidential Steering Committee on Palliatives, held at the State House, Abuja, President of the NLC, Joe Ajaero, pointed out that they plan to proceed on a peaceful protest from tomorrow had not changed.
Dismissing fears that the peaceful protest could be hijacked by hoodlums, Ajaero said it had never happened in the history of workers’ protest.
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Ajaero who said it was the responsibility of security agencies to provide security for the protest to protect workers, expressed doubts about President Tinubu’s ability to control inflation and gasoline prices due to the unification of the exchange rate.
Information Nigeria reports that Tinubu, in his broadcast, said his administration was monitoring the effects of the exchange rate and inflation on gasoline prices with a pledge to intervene “if and when necessary.”
Reacting to Tinubu’s plan to intervene on exchange rate 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?”
