THE organised labour on Monday maintained the stand to proceed with its planned protest over the removal of petroleum subsidy.
The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, spoke with State House reporters after another round of meeting of the Presidential Steering Committee on Palliatives at the presidential villa, Abuja.
He said the plan for workers to proceed on a peaceful protest from Wednesday has not changed.
Ajaero, who dismissed fears that the peaceful protest could be hijacked by hoodlums, said such 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.
The NLC boss also expressed doubts about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s ability to control inflation and gasoline prices due to the unification of the exchange rate.
He said the meeting of the Steering Committee adjourned till 12noon on Tuesday 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 dollar at about 900 (naira)? Are you going to tell him to sell below the price?
“How are you going to tell even NEPA 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?”
On his side, the Chief of Staff to the President said that issues were trashed at the closed door meeting and that they adjourned to listen to the President broadcast.
He also said the government was dealing with the oil cabals that have brought the economy to its knees.
“We have been locked behind for a couple of hours, we had a good meeting, issues were thrashed out on the situation in Nigeria today in terms of issues centred around on government intervention on the situation in the country.
“We agreed to adjourn till tomorrow as you know Mr. President is making a national broadcast today. Based on what we anticipate that Mr. President will be telling Nigerians we decided to adjourn meeting till 12pm tomorrow before labour can decide whether or not they want to continue with the protest on Wednesday.
“But we believe that after tonight broadcast, President will speak to all the issues, he will roll out his interventions and needles to say we believe any reasonable person will tell you that at that point there will be no need for any protest.”
On why government did not roll out palliatives before announcing the stoppage of petrol subsidy, he said the previous government did not budget for subsidy and that President Tinubu was rolling out palliatives to cushion its effect on the people.
Asked whether the oil cabals were more powerful than the security and government, he said, “Yes they are and that’s what government is dealing with. First of all remove the subsidy, that’s the first step.”
Also speaking, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Malam Nuhu Ribadu, pleaded with the organised labour to give the administration little chance to fix the battered economy.
He said 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 Haram,” he said.
The organised labour had walked out of the meeting on Friday last week, claiming that there was no top government officials to negotiate with them.
Monday’s meeting was attended by were Ajaero, his counterpart from TUC, Festus Osifo; the General Secretary of NLC, Comrade Emma Ugbaja; the TUC Secretary, Nuhu Toro and other members of the organised labour delegation including Prof. Sam Amadi.
From the side of government were the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Kachollom Daju; the Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari and the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen among others.