The Nigeria Labour Congress has charged President Bola Tinubu to unmask those who looted the nation under the guise of petrol subsidy.
While reacting to the president’s Monday night broadcast, the NLC noted that Tinubu failed to failed to address the core need of the masses.
The congress, on Monday night, claimed that the promises and assurances made by President Tinubu were not the “silver bullet” that Nigerians expected, according to Leadership.
In a statement issued late Monday night, NLC national president, Comrade Joseph Ajaero, expressed dismay over what he called the President’s failure to rather speak on resuscitating Nigeria’s refineries as the major pain point in the fuel subsidy narrative.
He maintained that the President’s statement on “working with organised labour to review the national minimum wage” was out of sync with what has played out since he had removed the petrol subsidy.
He dismissed that the sub-committee on wage award had not been inaugurated nor ever met to discuss issues of wage review.
He stressed that the congress will not seize on its struggle until the government does the needful to ameliorate Nigerians’ suffering.
On the claims of interventions by the federal government through palliatives, loans and conditional grants to poor Nigerians and provision of CNG buses, the labour leader said Nigerians were used to such promises which have never produced any verifiable and meaningful changes in the lives of citizens.
“Consistent with our perception of the misalignment of Mr President’s promises and offerings to the reality faced by millions of workers and ordinary Nigerians was the failure of President Tinubu to unmask those behind the looting of Nigeria’s commonwealth under the guise of petrol subsidy.
It is unacceptable for the President and Commander-in-Chief to lament like ordinary Nigerians about a group that Mr President routinely referred to in his speech as the “elites of the elites” who have stolen so much from Nigeria that they have become so powerful as to constitute a threat to democratic governance, what Nigerians expected from Mr President is a firm commitment to bring these economic saboteurs to justice and recover what they have stolen”, Ajaero said.
He added, “In all the meetings scheduled by the government, Organised Labour has been forced to negotiate with empty chairs on the federal government’s side as the federal government has not matched its public promises with a firm commitment to negotiate in good faith with labour.”
