President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, has slammed the proposed N8,000 palliative being mulled by the Federal Government supposedly to cushion the effect of the fuel subsidy removal on vulnerable Nigerians.
In a lengthy statement on Tuesday, in Abuja, Ajaero said the unfolding development following the fuel subsidy removal policy did not come as a surprise to the organised Labour union, stressing that dialogue had always been the best option in resolving such issues.
Ajaero said, “We have restrained ourselves from making further comments publicly on the vexatious issues around the recent but unfortunate unilateral hike in the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in the guise of the so-called subsidy withdrawal which has unleashed predictably as we had earlier warned unimaginable and unprecedented hardship, sorrow, anguish and suffering upon Nigerian workers and masses.”
He said Labour’s position had always revolved around their strong and abiding faith in the outcomes of the processes of social dialogue and its mechanisms, especially within a democratic setting in which fortunately all the major stakeholders in the nation’s socio-economic framework plead to this particular point in time though some have demonstrably shown that it does not go deeper than the rhetoric.
He alleged that the government of Nigeria seems to have been misled into believing that resorting to impunity and imperiousness in governance in a democracy is a beneficial option as it pursues its stated and unstated objectives.
Continuing with its condemnation, the NLC President said it is this belief that we are sure has continued shaping the actions of this government since its inauguration on the 29th day of May 2023 to continue inflicting mindless and heartless pains on the populace one after the other without the decency of embracing the tenets of democracy which requires wide and deep stakeholder consultation on weighty matters of state.
He said Nigerians would remember that the federal government had called for dialogue in the aftermath of its disastrous forlorn trajectory in the astronomical increase in petroleum product prices and our subsequent call for nationwide industrial action.
“We were also witnesses to the actions of the Federal Government in procuring an unholy injunction from the courts which were served us in Gestapo style by trucks laden with fully armed soldiers and policemen.
“In all of these provocations, we remained committed to the principles of the Rule of Law, good conscience, and democracy so that we can continue to be the moral compass for leaders in the public space.
“This explained our decision to suspend action on the proposed strike. As it stands, rather than reciprocate the goodwill of Nigerian workers, the Federal Government has insisted on threading the path of dictatorship and seeking to impoverish the people further by taking steps that can only be described as robbing the people of Nigeria to pay and feed the rich.
“It is on this basis that the NLC strongly condemns the decision of the Tinubu-led administration to seek the approval of the National Assembly to obtain another tranche of external loans worth N500 billion from the World Bank for the purposes of carrying out a phantom palliative measure to cushion the effect of its poorly thought-out hike in the prices of Premium Motor Spirit.
“Remember that the U$800 million which was already proposed before the devaluation of the Naira by this government was worth about N400b then but is now worth about N650b after devaluation. It is from this it proposes to bring out N500b for distribution.
“The proposal to pay N8,000 to each of the so-called 12 million poorest Nigerian households for a period of six months insults our collective intelligence and makes a mockery of our patience and abiding faith in social dialogue which the government may have alluded to albeit pretentiously.
“The further proposal to pay National Assembly members the sum of N70 billion and the Judiciary N36 billion is the most insensitive, reckless, and brazen diversion of our collective patrimony into the pockets of public officers whose sworn responsibility it is to protect our nation’s treasury. We believe that this may amount to hush money and outright bribery of the other arms of government to acquiesce the aberration.
“It is unconscionable that a government that has foisted so much hardship on the people within nearly two months of coming into office will make a proposal that clearly rewards the rich in public office to the detriment of the poor. What this means all this while is that the government is seeking ways of robbing the very poor Nigerians so that the rich can become richer. There is no other way to explain the proposal to pay a misery sum of N8,000 to each of the mysterious poorest 12 million households for six months which amounts to N48,000 and pays just 469 National Legislators N70 billion or about N149 million each while the Judiciary has about 72 Appeal Court Judges, 33 National Industrial Court Judges, 75 Federal High Court Judges, and 21 Supreme Court Judges and a total of about 201 Judges receives a total of N35 billion or N174 million each.
“If these other two arms are projected to receive this, what members of the Executive Council will receive is better left to the imagination of Nigerians perhaps, the balance of N150 billion will go to them.
“These proposals are not just unacceptable to Nigerian workers but are also dictatorial and thus undemocratic. It is not a product of social dialogue that would have produced collectively negotiated outcomes by critical national stakeholders.
“We had thought that this government given the circumstances of its emergence ought to have been a stickler to all the preachments of the fine tenets of democracy which would have shored up its image and begins to build legitimacy for itself unfortunately, it seems to be in a hurry to abandon the remaining pretensions to democracy that the previous administration left behind.
“Furthermore, the actions of the federal government show that it does not have trust and confidence in the very Presidential Committee that it set up to take a comprehensive look at the consequences of the Petroleum Product price hike and make recommendations on the way forward to ameliorate its negative impacts upon the citizenry. What this means is that the government may actually not be interested in the work of the Committee and may have used it as a window to pretend to Nigerians that it is taking steps toward dealing with the consequences of its policies.
