…Palliatives not enough, says organised labour
…Strike will hold, NLC insists
The federal government Tuesday appealed to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUCN) not to embark on the planned nationwide strike scheduled for Wednesday.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting of the Presidential Steering Committee on Palliatives held in Abuja, the Chief of Staff to the President Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, said government was working hard to address the hardship being experienced by Nigerians occasioned by the removal of fuel subsidy.
“We have laid out the plans, the interventions of Mr. President, as you all heard in his broadcast yesterday, we made it clear that this was just Mr. President’s initial rollout and interventions and that conversations will be ongoing as we go along.
“And we appealed to Labour, we did appeal to labour to call off the protests for tomorrow. We found listening ears here and they did agree that they all accepted that Mr. President’s broadcast was a welcome development and that they will go back home to talk to the other leaders that are not present today. So we’re hopeful that they will do the right thing and call off the strike tomorrow,” he said.
However, the Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress Comrade Titus Amba said that there was nothing new apart from the broadcast of President Bola Tinubu that was presented to the committee.
He said the palliatives as rolled out by the President in his broadcast cannot remedy anything.
“We met today, and we discussed based on what we all left yesterday, with the mind of coming back today. After the president’s speech, we all listened to the President’s speech with an appeal that time should be given to this very government.
“And we sat down and we analysed it very, very well. And we came up with some issues, which I believe you heard it from the TUC President where he said the president of this country did mention that within two months, the government of Nigeria was able to at least save a trillion naira.
“And to the ordinary Nigerian out there, he will conclude that there are a lot of funds kept because of this subsidy issue. So why can’t this monies be made available so that it can cushion the suffering and yearning of all Nigerians. So these were some of the things that we discussed.
“We also said that the 3000 buses proposed to be made available are not sufficient. If you divide by the number of states that we have, it won’t take us anywhere. So, the government came with an appeal of shifting the intended protest tomorrow,” he said.
On the plea for the suspension of the protest, he said: “We said no, it is not something that we can discuss here, because we have other organs of the union that we have to go back to for them to look at it critically, because the truth is that every Nigerian out there is boiling out there and waiting to see what will come out of this very meeting.
“And we had to go back and maybe make a presentation to them that this is what government have said and this is what we’re thinking how we should go about it. So this is the decision that we have now.”
Also speaking, President of TUC Mr Festus Osifo said what presented yo the organised labour by the government was not far-reaching.
“We told Nigerians that we’ll be meeting today by 12 noon, so we came here much later. We had the conversation, and again the government team told us that what the President has put on the table is more or less like a starting point, and it’s a baseline.
“So we on our path also said yes, that we would have been surprised if that is everything that will be put forward because for us we felt that there are some gaps. For us, we felt that the President has said that 1 trillion Naira has been saved in the last two months that what has been proposed is not far-reaching.
“And for us, you know, as part of the principle of negotiations, when anything is put on the table, you accept, but you push for more. So, on our path, we said that what has been put on the table is not sufficient, it’s not enough, and that they can do more.
“So part of what we put forward was that, we will look at those things that the President highlighted. We think, for example, that 3000 buses are not sufficient, we think it is not sufficient. By the time you divide 3000 by 37, you can see how many they can come up to so it’s not sufficient, it’s grossly inadequate.
“We also think that some of the measures put on the table are not far-reaching. So we are also going to demand for what we think will do, so if we think 30,000 buses could do it or 40,000 buses could do it in the immediate.
“Yes, we’ll push it forward. So those were all the conversations that we had. Then on the government part, they also appealed that we should shelve the protests. Our response was that we are going to go back this evening and also have a conversation around that and you will hear from us at the end of that conversation,” he said.
